



n ^ 

V ,<v 4? 






V- 




k 

. _^ . -O r.- 

d' ^ ^ '^' rv ' 

I V ^ vl ♦ r^ > ^ <1 r\ 

^v- °'t. *..’• „ e-. *'>so’ ^0 

SS' \' s'' 

- .\ O ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 4 ^ . T* 




y <p. 



'/». -;. 

d- . 

C<>~ <■, -^o. "•' ,o'? «' '■* 



\ 0 



<C- ’ ' “ • ^ * a'^ 

-Y ^ 

- •4’J 


^ = X° °.. * 



iV* \k 

'</> v\^ 

>"> ,^V 




O ^ 0 I A * 4^^ 

/-V^ S ^ f\ « 1 ' \ > s. f> ^ 

^ ^ O \* '^ ^ 

^ ® <f‘ <'0^ “ 

xV t/'- - ^^^Hdl’i'’!^^ f' ^ o U// \' 

.y . . . ^ ^ 


- -i ' X 

0»>-^.\'^ „v^ Hr 



0 « k 





■y, * 

X _ 

'D ** , . s X 0 

rt N C ’/'* ^ ft * ' ♦< 1 I * ^ 

C « . 'o- - ,. 0 ‘ ^ ^ 

^ "oO^ 

« 1 







<p «v 



v.„ % *•''” x''^ x” 

A^ r ^ O. 'P. H 

C. " 





^ ^ C ° ® -P 

K ° 

‘ <1 


>p^^. 


^ 0 ^ 



^ 0 ^ K^ A • 

fP' ,a‘^ C®’' 

■'’ A 

^ 0 ' » ^ '^ > ® ^ 

"* ^ ® >■ 

- N ^'. ' rk <*• 

' ’ .- 0 ^ 


j'"' *°'*°V »x.o, -o 




> s^ ’ * > 


3 M 


* » ■ 1 A “ ♦ 

vVa^Vs ■> 


aV 


kXT' 'A .p. * <> V, 

'■ V'\^ jr *X' * ' ' 



aN X ^ 


o ^ o^. . ^ 


■•) N 




0 ^ »'*»,% 

A** ^ 

o 

















BORN with a 
GOLDEN SPOON 

Gilbert Parker 



New York 

Doubleday & McClure Co. 


TWO COPIES BECEIVEO, 


i.^i>raiy of Coiii]^r««5||| 
Offtca of tha 

NOV 27 1899 

Regittor of CopyrlghtS^r 




47661 

Copyright, 1899, by 
DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. 



SECOND COPY, 

JVrvS' 



CONTENTS 


^ , BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

yf ^ PAGE 


The Absurd Romance of P’tite Louison 

. 




I 

The Little Bell of Honour 

. 

. 


• 


8 

A Son of the Wilderness . 

. 



• 


32 

A Worker in Stone 




• 

# 


39 

The Tragic Comedy of Annette 




• 


51 

The Marriage of the Miller . 






55 

Mathurin 






59 

The Story of the Lime-Burner 






67 

The Woodsman’s Story of the Great White 

Chief 


74 

Uncle Jim 






78 

The House with the Tall Porch 






88 

Parpon the Dwarf 






92 

Times were Hard in Pontiac 






115 

Medallion’s Whim 






121 

The Prisoner .... 






134 

An Upset Price .... 




• 


140 

A Fragment of Lives . 




• 


150 

The Man that Died at Alma . 




• 


155 

The Baron of Beaugard 






167 


IV 


CONTENTS 


PARABLES OF A PROVINCE 


The Golden Pipes .... 
The Guardian of the Fire 
By that Place called Peradventure 
The Singing of the Bees . 

There was a Little City . 

The -White Omen 

The Tent of the Purple Mat . 

The Sojourners 

*‘I WAS A Stranger” . . . . 

The Tune McGilvray Played . 

The Forge in the Valley . , 


PAGE 

. 183 
. 188 

. 193 

. 198 
. 201 
. 219 
. 224 

• 233 

. 238 
. 254 
. 269 


THE ABSURD ROMANCE OF PTITE 
LOUISON 



HE five brothers lived with Louison, three miles 


X from Pontiac, and Medallion came to know 
them first through having sold them, at an auction, 
a slice of an adjoining farm. He had been invited 
to their home, intimacy had grown, and afterward, 
stricken with a severe illness, he had been taken into 
the household and kept there till he was well again. 
The night of his arrival, Louison, the sister, stood with 
a brother on either hand — Octave and Florian — and 
received him with a courtesy more stately than usual, 
an expression of the reserve and modesty of her single 
state. This maidenly dignity was at all times shielded 
by the five brothers, who treated her with a constant 
and reverential courtesy. There was something sig- 
nally suggestive in their homage, and Medallion con- 
cluded at last that it was paid not only to the sister but 
to something that gave her great importance in their 


eyes. 


He puzzled long, and finally decided that Louison 
had a romance. There was something which sug- 
gested it in the way they said “ P’tite Louison ” ; in the 
manner they avoided all gossip regarding marriages 
and marriage-feasting ; in the way they deferred to her 
on a question of etiquette (as, for instance. Should the 
eldest child be given the family name of the wife or a 
Christian name from her husband’s family?) And 


2 


BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


P’tite Louison’s opinion was accepted instantly as final, 
with satisfied nods on the part of all the brothers, and 
with whispers of “ How clever ! how adorable ! such 
beauty ! ” 

P’tite Louison affected never to hear these remarks, 
but looked complacently straight before her, stirring 
the spoon in her cup, or benignly passing the bread and 
butter. She was quite aware of the homage paid to 
her, and she gracefully accepted the fact that she was 
an object of interest. 

Medallion had not the heart to laugh at the adoration 
of the brothers, nor at the outlandish sister, for, though 
she was angular and sallow and thin, and her hands 
were large and red, there was a something deep in her 
eyes, a curious quality in her carriage, commanding 
respect. She had ruled these brothers, had been wor- 
shipped by them, for near half a century, and the 
romance they had kept alive had produced a gro- 
tesque sort of truth and beauty in the admiring “ P’tite 
Louison ” — an affectionate name for her greatness, like 
the “ Little Corporal ” for Napoleon. She was not 
little, either, but above the middle height, and her hair 
was well streaked with gray. 

Her manner toward Medallion was not marked by 
any affectation. She was friendly in a kind, imper- 
sonal way, much as a nurse cares for a patient, and she 
never relaxed a sort of old-fashioned courtesy, which 
might have been trying in such close quarters, were it 
not for the real simplicity of the life and the spirit and 
lightness of their race. One night Florian — there were 
Florian and Octave and Felix and Isidore and Emile — 
the eldest, drew Medallion aside from the others, and 
they walked together by the river. Florian’s air sug- 
gested confidence and mystery, and soon, with a voice 


THE ROMANCE OF PTITE LOUISON 3 


of hushed suggestion, he told Medallion the romance of 
P’tite Louison. And each of the brothers at different 
times during the next fortnight did the same, differ- 
ing scarcely at all in details or choice of phrase or 
meaning, and not at all in general facts and essentials. 
But each, as he ended, made a different exclamation. 

“ Voila! so sad, so wonderful! She keeps the ring — 
dear P’tite Louison! ” said Florian, the eldest. 

“ Alors! she gives him a legacy in her will! Sweet 
P’tite Louison,” said Octave. 

“ Mais! the governor and the archbishop admire 
her — P’tite Louison ! ” said Felix, nodding confidently 
at Af edallion. 

“ Bien! you should see the linen and the petticoats! ” 
said Isidore, the humorous one of the family. “ He 
was great — she was an angel — P’tite Louison! ” 

'‘Attends! what love! what history! what passion! — 
the perfect P’tite Louison! ” cried Emile, the youngest, 
the most sentimental. “Ah, Moliere! ” he added, as 
if calling on the master to rise and sing the glories of 
this daughter of romance. 

Isidore’s tale was after this fashion : 

“ I ver’ well remember the first of it; and the last of 
it — who can tell? He was an actor — oh, so droll, that! 
Tall, ver’ smart, and he play in theatre at Montreal. It 
is in the winter. P’tite Louison visit Montreal. She 
walk past the theatre and, as she go by, she slip on the 
snow and fall. Out from a door with a jomp come 
M’sieu Hadrian, and pick her up. And when he see 
the purty face of P’tite Louison, his eyes go all afire 
and he clasp her hand to his breast. 

“ ' Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! ’ he say, ‘ we must 
meet again ! ’ 

“ She thank him, and hurry away quick. Next day 


4 


BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


we are on the river and P’tite Louison try to do the 
Dance of the Blue Fox on the ice. While she do it, 
some one come up swift and catch her hand, and say, 
‘ Ma’m’selle, let’s do it together ’ — like that ! It take 
her breath away. It is M’sieu’ Hadrian. He not seem 
like the other men she know, but he have a sharp look, 
he is smooth in the face, and he smile kind like a 
woman. P’tite Louison, she give him her hand, and 
they run away, and everyone stop to look. It is a 
gran’ sight! M’sieu’ Hadrian laugh and his teeth 
shine, and the ladies say things of him, and he tell 
P’tite Louison that she look ver’ fine and walk like a 
queen. I am there that day, and I see all and I think 
it dam good. I say : ‘ That P’tite Louison, she beat 
them all ’ — I am only twelve year old then. When 
M’sieu’ Hadrian leave he give her two seats for the 
theatre, and we go. Bagosh ! that is grand thing, that 
play, and M’sieu’ Hadrian, he is a prince; and when 
he say to his minister, ‘ But, no, my lord, I will marry 
out of my star, and where my heart go, not as the 
state wills,’ he look down at P’tite Louison, and she 
go all red, and some of the women look at her, and 
there is a whisper all roun’. 

“ Nex’ day he come to the house where we stay, but 
the Cure come also pretty soon and tell her she must 
go home — he say an actor is not good company. 
Never mind. And so we come out home. Well, what 
you think? Nex’ day M’sieu’ Hadrian come, too, 
and we have dam good time — Florian, Octave, Felix, 
Emile, they all sit and say bully good to him all the 
time. Holy, what fine stories he tell! And he talk 
about P’tite Louison, and his eyes get wet, and Emile 
he say his prayers to him — bagosh! yes, I think. Well, 
at last, what you guess? M’sieu’ he come and come. 


THE ROMANCE OF FTITE LOUISON 5 

and at last one day, he say that he leave Montreal and 
go to New York, where he get a good place in a big 
theatre — his time in Montreal is finish. So he speak 
to Florian and say he want to marry P’tite Louison, 
and he say, of course, that he is not marry and he have 
money. But he is a Protestan’, and the Cure at first 
ver’ mad, bagosh! 

“ But at last when he give a hunder’ dollars to the 
Church, the Cure say yes. All happy that way for 
while. P’tite Louison, she get ready quick — sapr^, 
what fine things had she! and it is all to be done in a 
week, while the theatre in New York wait for M’sieu’. 
He sit there with us, and play on the fiddle, and sing 
songs, and act plays, and help Florian in the barn, and 
Octave to mend the fence, and the Cure to fix the 
grapevines on his wall. He show me and Emile how 
to play sword sticks; and he pick flowers and fetch 
them to P’tite Louison, and teach her how to make an 
omelette and a salad like the chef of the Louis Quinze 
Hotel, so he say. Bagosh, what a good time we have! 
But first one, then another, he get a choke-throat when 
he think that P’tite Louison go to leave us, and the 
more we try, the more we are bagosh fools. And 
that P’tite Louison, she kiss us hevery one, and say to 
M’sieu’ Hadrian, ‘ Charles, I love you, but I cannot 
go! ’ He laugh at her, and say: ^Voilh! will take 
them all with us,’ and P’tite Louison she laugh. That 
night a thing happen. The Cure come, and he look 
ver’ mad, and he frown and he say to M’sieu’ Hadrian 
before us all, ‘ M’sieu’, you are married ! ’ 

“ Sapr^! that P’tite Louison get pale like snow, and 
we all Stan’ roun’ her close and say to her quick, 

* Courage, P’tite Louison ! ’ M’sieu’ Hadrian then 
look at the priest and say: ^ No, M’sieu’, I was married 


6 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


ten years ago; my wife drink and go wrong, and I get 
divorce. I am free like the wind.’ 

“ ‘ You are not free,’ the Cure say quick. ' Once 
married, married till death. The Church cannot 
marry you again, and I command Louison to give you 
up.’ 

“ P’tite Louison stand like stone. M’sieu’ turn to 
her. ‘ What shall it be, Louison? ’ he say. ' You 
will come with me? ’ 

“ ‘ Kiss me, Charles,’ she say, ' and tell me good-by 
till — till you are free.’ 

“ He look like a madman. ‘ Kiss me once, Charles,’ 
she say, ‘ and let me go.’ 

“ And he come to her and kiss her on the lips once, 
and he say: ‘ Louison, come with me. I will never 
give you up.’ 

“ She draw back to Florian. ' Good-by, Charles ! ’ 
she say. ‘ I will wait as long as you will. Mother of 
God! how hard it is to do right! ’ she say, and then she 
turn and leave the room. 

“ M’sieu’ Hadrian, he give a long sigh. ‘ It was my 
one chance,’ he say. ‘Now the devil take it all!’ 
Then he nod and say to the Cure: ‘ We’ll thrash this 
out at Judgment Day, M’sieu’. I’ll meet you there — 
you and that other woman that spoiled me.’ 

“ He turn to Florian and the rest of us, and shake 
hands, and say: ‘ Take care of Louison. Thank you. 
Good-by! ’ Then he start toward the door, but 
stumble, for he look sick. ‘ Give me a drink,’ he say, 
and begin to cough a little — a queer sort of rattle. 
Florian give him big drink, and he toss it off — whiff ! 
‘ Thank you,’ he say, and start again, and we see him 
walk away over the hill ver’ slow — an’ he never come 
back! But every year there come from New York a 


THE ROMANCE OF P’TITE LOUISON 7 

box of flowers, and every year P’tite Louison send 
him a ^Merci^ Charles^ mille fois, Dieu te garde. ’ It 
is so every year for twenty-five year.” 

“ Where is he now? ” asked Medallion. 

Isidore shook his head, then lifted his eyes relig- 
iously. “ Waiting for Judgment Day and P’tite 
Louison,” he answered. 

“ Dead! ” cried Medallion. “ How long? ” 

“ Twenty year.” 

“ But the flowers — the flowers? ” 

“ He left word for them to be sent just the same, and 
the money for it.” 

Medallion turned and took off his hat reverently as 
if a soul were passing from the world, but it was only 
P’tite Louison going out into the garden. 

“ She thinks him living? ” he asked gently as he 
watched Louison. 

“Yes; we have no heart to tell her. And then he 
wish it so. And the flowers kep’ coming.” 

“ Why did he wish it so?” 

Isidore mused a while. 

“Who can tell? Perhaps a whim. He was a great 
actor — ah, yes, sublime! ” he said. 

Medallion did not reply, but walked slowly down to 
where P’tite Louison was picking berries. His hat 
was still off. 

“ Let me help you. Mademoiselle,” he said softly. 
And henceforth he was as foolish as her brothers. 

I* 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 


“ ^fACRR baptime ! 

“ What did he say ? ” asked the Little 
Chemist, stepping from his doorway. 

“ He cursed his baptism,'' answered tall Medallion, 
the English auctioneer, pushing his way farther into 
the crowd. 

“ Ah, the pitiful vaurien! " said the Little Chemist’s 
wife, shudderingly ; for that was an oath not to be en- 
dured by any one who called the Church mother. 

The crowd that had gathered at the Four Corners 
were greatly disturbed, for they also felt the repulsion 
that possessed the Little Chemist’s wife. They bab- 
bled, shook their heads, and waved their hands excit- 
edly, and swayed and craned their necks to see the 
offender. 

All at once his voice, mad with rage, was heard 
above the rest,, shouting frenziedly a curse which was 
a horribly grotesque blasphemy upon the name of God* 
Men who had used that oath in their insane anger had 
been known to commit suicide out of remorse after- 
ward. 

For a moment there was a painful hush. The crowd 
drew back involuntarily and left a clear space, in which 
stood the blasphemer, a middle-sized, athletic fellow, 
with black beard, thick, waving hair, and flashing 
brown eyes. His white teeth were showing now in a 
snarl like a dog's, his cap was on the ground, his hair 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 9 


was tumbled, his hands were twitching with passion, 
his foot was stamping with fury, and every time it 
struck the ground a little silver bell rang at his knee, 
a pretty sylvan sound, in no keeping with the scene. 
It heightened the distress of the fellow’s blasphemy and 
ungovernable anger. For a man to curse his baptism 
was a wicked thing ; but the other oath was not fit for 
human ears, and horror held the crowd moveless for a 
moment. 

Then, as suddenly as the stillness came, a low, 
threatening mumble of voices rose, and a movement 
to close in on the man was made ; but a figure pushed 
through the crowd, and, standing in front of the man, 
waved the people back. It was the Cure, the beloved 
M. Fabre, whose life had been spent among them, 
whom they obeyed as well as they could, for they were 
but frail humanity, after all — crude, simple folk, 
touched with imagination. 

“ Luc Pomfrette, why have you done this ? What 
provocation had you ? ” 

The Cure’s voice was stern and cold, his usually 
gentle face had become severe, his soft eyes were pierc- 
ing and determined. 

The foot of the man still beat the ground angrily, 
and the little bell kept tinkling. He was gasping with 
passion, and he did not answer yet. 

“ Luc Pomfrette, what have you to say ? ” asked the 
Cure again. He motioned back Ardenne, the con- 
stable of the parish, who had suddenly appeared with 
a rusty rifle and a more rusty pair of handcuffs. 

Still the voyageur did not answer. 

The Cure glanced at Lajeunesse the blacksmith, who 
stood near. 

“ There was no cause — no,” said Lajeunesse, sagely 


10 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


shaking his head. “ Here stand we at the door of the 
Louis Quinze in very good humour. Up come the 
voyageurs, all laughing, and ahead of them is Luc 
Pomfrette, with the little bell at his knee. Luc, he 
laugh the same as the rest, and they stand in the door, 
and ^^garqon bring out the brandy — ^just a little, but 
just enough too. I am talking to Henri Beauvin. I 
am telling him Junie Gauloir have run away with 
Dicey the Protestant, when all very quick Luc push 
between me and Henri, jump into the street, and speak 
like that ! ” 

Lajeunesse looked around, as if for corroboration; 
Henri and others nodded, and some one said : 

“ That’s true ; that’s true. There was no cause.” 

“ Maybe it was the drink,” said a little hunchbacked 
man, pushing his way in beside the Cure. “ It must 
have been the drink ; there was nothing else — no.” 

The speaker was Parpon the dwarf, the oddest, in 
some ways the most foolish, in others the wisest man 
in Pontiac. 

“ That is no excuse,” said the Cure. 

“ It is the only one he has, eh ? ” answered Parpon. 
His eyes were fixed meaningly on those of Pom- 
frette. 

“ It is no excuse,” repeated the Cure, sternly. “ The 
blasphemy is horrible, a shame and stigma upon Pon- 
tiac forever.” He looked Pomfrette in the face. 
“ Foul-mouthed and wicked man, it is two years since 
you took the Blessed Sacrament. Last Easter day you 
were in a drunken sleep while high mass was being 
said; after the funeral of your own father you were 
drunk again. When you went away to the woods 
you never left a penny for candles, nor for masses to be 
said for your father’s soul ; yet you sold his horse and 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR ii 


his little house, and spent the money in drink. Not a 
Cent for a candle, but ” 

“ It’s a lie ! ” cried Pomfrette, shaking with rage 
from head to foot. 

A long horror-stricken “ Ah ! ” broke from the 
crowd. 

The Cure’s face became graver and colder. 

“ You have a bad heart,” he answered, “ and you 
give Pontiac an evil name. I command you to come 
to mass next Sunday, to repent and to hear your pen- 
ance given from the altar. For until ” 

“ I’ll go to no mass till I’m carried to it,” was the 
sullen, malevolent interruption. 

The Cure turned upon the people. 

“ This is a blasphemer, an evil-hearted, shameless 
man,” he said. “ Until he repents humbly, and bows 
his vicious spirit to holy Church, and his heart to the 
mercy of God, I command you to avoid him as you 
would a plague. I command that no door be opened 
to him ; that no one offer him comfort or friendship ; 
that not even a bonjour or a bonsoir pass between 
you. He has blasphemed against our Father in 
heaven ; to the Church he is a leper.” He turned to 
Pomfrette. “ I pray God that you have no peace in 
mind or body till your evil life is changed, and your 
black heart is broken by sorrow and repentance.” 

Then to the people he said again : “ I have com- 
manded you for your souls’ sake; see that you obey. 
Go to your homes. Let us leave the leper — alone.” 
He waved the awed crowd back. 

“ Shall we take off the little bell? ” asked Lajeunesse 
of the Cure. 

Pomfrette heard, and he drew himself together, his 
jaws shutting with ferocity, and his hand flying to the 


12 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


belt where his voyageur’s case-knife hung. The Cure 
did not see this. Without turning his head toward 
Pomfrette, he said : 

“ I have commanded you, my children. Leave the 
leper alone.” 

Again he waved the crowd to be gone, and they scat- 
tered, whispering to each other; for nothing like this 
had ever occurred in Pontiac before, nor had they ever 
seen the Cure with this granite look in his face, nor 
heard his voice so bitterly hard. 

He did not move until he had seen them all started 
homewards from the Four Corners. One person re- 
mained beside him — Parpon the dwarf. 

“ I will not obey you, M’sieu’ le Cure,” said he. 
“ rU forgive him before he repents.” 

“ You will share his sin,” answered the Cure, sternly. 

“ No; his punishment, m’sieu’,” said the dwarf; and 
turning on his heel, he trotted to where Pomfrette 
stood alone in the middle of the road, a dark, morose 
figure, hatred and a wild trouble in his face. 

Already banishment, isolation, seemed to possess 
Pomfrette, to surround him with loneliness. The very 
effort he made to be defiant of his fate appeared to 
make him still more solitary. All at once he thrust a 
hand inside his red shirt, and, giving a jerk which 
broke a string tied round his neck, he drew forth a little 
pad, a flat bag of silk, called an Agnus Dei, worn as a 
protection and a blessing by the pious, and threw it on 
the ground. Another little parcel he drew from his 
belt, and ground it into the dirt with his heel. It 
contained a woman’s hair. Then, muttering, his hands 
still twitching with savage feeling, he picked up his 
cap, covered with dirt, put it on, and passed away down 
the road toward the river, the little bell tinkling as he 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 


3 


went. Those who heard it had a strange feeling, for 
already to them the man was as if he had some baleful 
disease, and this little bell told of the passing of a leper. 

Yet some one man had worn just such a bell every 
year in Pontiac. It was the mark of honour conferred 
upon a voyageur by his fellows, the token of his 
prowess and his skill. This year Luc Pomfrette had 
won it, and that very day it had been buckled round 
his leg with songs and toasts. 

For hours Pomfrette walked incessantly up and 
down the river-bank, muttering and gesticulating, but 
at last came quietly to the cottage which he shared 
with Henri Beauvin. Henri had removed himself and 
his belongings : already the ostracizing had begun. He 
went to the bedroom of old Mme. Burgoyne, his cou- 
sin ; she also was gone. He went to a little outhouse 
and called. 

For reply there was a scratching at the door. He 
opened it, and a dog leaped out and upon him. With 
a fierce fondness he snatched at the dog’s collar, and 
drew the shaggy head to his knee; then as suddenly 
shoved him away with a smothered oath, and going 
into the house, shut the door. He sat down in a chair 
in the middle of the room, and scarcely stirred for half 
an hour. At last, with a passionate jerk of the head, 
he got to his feet, looking about the room in a half- 
distracted way. Outside, the dog kept running round 
and round the house, silent, watchful, waiting for the 
door to open. 

As time went by, Luc became quieter, but the look 
of his face was more desolate. At last he almost ran 
to the door, threw it open, and called. The dog sprang 
into the room, went straight to the fireplace, lay 
down, and with tongue lolling and body panting 


14 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


looked at Pomfrette with blinking, uncomprehending 
eyes. 

Pomfrette went to a cupboard, brought back a bone 
well covered with meat, and gave it to the dog, which 
snatched it and began gnawing it, now and again stop- 
ping to look up at his master, as one might look at a 
mountain moving, be aware of something singular, yet 
not grasp the significance of the phenomenon. At last, 
worn out, Pomfrette threw himself on his bed, and fell 
into a sound sleep. When he awoke it was far into the 
morning. He lighted a fire in the kitchen, got a 
“ spider,” fried himself a piece of pork, and made some 
tea. There was no milk in the cupboard, so he took 
a pitcher and walked down the road a few rods to the 
next house, where lived the village milkman. He 
knocked, and the door was opened by the milkman’s 
wife. A frightened look came upon her when she saw 
who it was. 

“ Non, non,” she said, and shut the door in his face. 

He stared blankly at the door for a moment, then 
turned round and stood looking down into the road, 
with the pitcher in his hand. The milkman’s little 
boy, Maxime, came running round the corner of the 
house. 

“ Maxime,” he said involuntarily and half eagerly, 
for he and the lad had been great friends. 

Maxime’s face brightened, then became clouded ; he 
stood still an instant, and presently, turning round and 
looking at Pomfrette askance, ran away behind the 
house, saying, “ Non, non ! ” 

Pomfrette drew his rough knuckles across his fore- 
head in a dazed way; then, as the significance of the 
thing came home to him, he broke out with a fierce 
oath, and strode away down the yard and into the road. 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 15 

On the way to his house he met Duclosse the mealman, 
and Garotte the lime-burner. He wondered what they 
would do. He could see the fat, wheezy Duclosse hesi- 
tate, but the arid, alert Garotte had determination in 
every motion and look. They came nearer ; they were 
about to pass ; there was no sign. 

Pomfrette stopped short. “ Good day, lime-burner ; 
good day, Duclosse,” he said, looking straight at them. 

Garotte made no reply, but walked straight on. 
Pomfrette stepped swiftly in front of the mealman. 
There was fury in his face — fury and danger ; his hair 
was disordered, his eyes, afire. 

“ Good-day, mealman,” he said, and waited. 

“ Duclosse,” called Garotte, warningly, “ remem- 
ber!” 

Duclosse’s knees shook, and his face became mottled 
like a piece of soap ; he pushed his fingers into his shirt 
and touched the Agnus Dei that he carried there. That 
and Garotte’s words gave him courage. He scarcely 
knew what he said, but it had meaning. 

“ Good-by — leper,” he answered. 

Pomfrette’s arm flew out to throw the pitcher at the 
mealman’s head, but Duclosse, with a grunt of terror, 
flung up in front of his face the small bag of meal that 
he carried, the contents pouring over his waistcoat 
from a loose corner. The picture was so ludicrous that 
Pomfrette laughed with a devilish humor, and flinging 
the pitcher at the bag, he walked away toward his own 
house. Duclosse, pale and frightened, stepped from 
among the fragments of crockery, and with backward 
glances toward Pomfrette joined his comrade. 

“ Lime-burner,” he said, sitting down on the bag of 
meal, and mechanically twisting tight the loose, leak- 
ing corner, ‘‘ the devil’s in that leper.” 


i6 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


“ He was a good enough fellow once,” answered 
Garotte, watching Pomfrette. 

“ I drank with him at five o’clock yesterday,” said 
Duclosse, philosophically. “ He was fit for any com- 
pany then ; now he’s fit for none.” 

Garotte looked wise. “ Mealman,” said he, “ it 
takes years to make folks love you ; you can make 
them hate you in an hour. La! La! it’s easier to hate 
than to love. Come along, M’sieu’ dusty-belly.” 

Pomfrette’s life in Pontiac went on as it began that 
day. Not once a day, and sometimes not once in 
twenty days, did any human being speak to him. The 
village baker would not sell him bread; his groceries 
he had to buy from the neighbouring parishes, for the 
grocer’s flighty wife called for the constable when he 
entered the bake-shop of Pontiac. He had to bake 
his own bread, and do his own cooking, washing, 
cleaning, and gardening. His hair grew long and his 
clothes became shabbier. At last, when he needed a 
new suit, — so torn had his others become at wood- 
chopping and many kinds of work — he went to the 
village tailor, and was promptly told that nothing but 
Luc Pomfrette’s grave-clothes would be cut and made 
in that house. 

When he walked down to the Four Corners the 
street emptied at once, and the lonely man with the 
tinkling bell of honour at his knee felt the whole world 
falling away from sight and touch and sound of him. 
Once when he went into the Louis Quinze every man 
present stole away in silence, and the landlord himself, 
without a word, turned and left the bar. At that, with 
a hoarse laugh, Pomfrette poured out a glass of brandy, 
drank it off, and left a shilling on the counter. The 
next morning he found the shilling, wrapped in a piece 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 17 


of paper, just inside his door; it had been pushed 
underneath. On the paper was written, “ It is cursed.'’ 

Presently his dog died, and the day afterward he sud- 
denly disappeared from Pontiac, and wandered on to 
Ste. Gabrielle, Ribeaux, and Ville Bambord. But his 
shame had gone before him, and people shunned him 
everywhere, even the roughest. No one who knew 
him would shelter him. He slept in barns and in the 
woods until the winter came and snow lay thick upon 
the ground. Thin and haggard, and with nothing left 
of his old self but his deep brown eyes and curling hair, 
and his unhappy name and fame, he turned back again 
to Pontiac. His spirit was sullen and hard, his heart 
closed against repentance. Had not the Church and 
Pontiac and the world punished him beyond his deserts 
for a moment’s madness brought on by a great shock ? 

H. 

One bright, sunshiny day of early winter, he trudged 
through the snow-banked street of Pontiac back to his 
home. Men he once knew well, and had worked with, 
passed him in a sled on their way to the great shanty 
in the backwoods. They halted in their singing for a 
moment when they saw him ; then, turning their heads 
from him, dashed off, carolling lustily : 

“Ah, ah, Babette, 

We go away ; 

But we will come 
Again, Babette, — 

Again back home. 

On Easter Day, — 

Back home to play 
On Easter Day, 

Babette ! Babette ! ” 


i8 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


“ Babette ! Babette ! ” The words followed him, 
ringing in his ears long after the men had become a 
mere fading point in the white horizon behind him. 
This was not the same world that he had known, not 
the same Pontiac. Suddenly he stopped short in the 
road. 

“ Curse them ! Curse them ! Curse them all ! ” he 
cried in a cracked, strange voice. A woman hurrying 
across the street heard him, and went the faster, shut- 
ting her ears. A little boy stood still and looked at 
him in wonder. Everything he saw maddened him. 
He turned sharp around and hurried to the Louis 
Quinze. Throwing open the door, he stepped inside. 
Half a dozen men were there with the landlord. When 
they saw him, they started, confused and dismayed. 
He stood still for a moment, looking at them with 
glowering brows. 

“ Good day ! ” he said. “ How are you ? ” 

No one answered. A little apart from the others sat 
Medallion the auctioneer. He was a Protestant, and 
the curse on his baptism uttered by Pomfrette was not 
so heinous in his sight. For the other oath, it was 
another matter. Still, he was sorry for the man. In 
any case, it was not his cue to interfere, and Luc was 
being punished according to his bringing up and to the 
standards familiar to him. Medallion had never re- 
fused to speak to him, but he had done nothing more. 
There was no reason why he should provoke the en- 
mity of the parish unnecessarily ; and up to this point 
Pomfrette had shifted for himself after a fashion, if a 
hard fashion. 

With a bitter laugh, Pomfrette turned to the little 
bar. 

“ Brandy ! ” he said ; “ brandy, my Bourienne ! ’’ 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 19 

The landlord shrugged his shoulder, and looked the 
other way. 

“ Brandy ! ’’ he repeated. Still there was no sign. 

There was a wicked look in his face, from which the 
landlord shrank back — shrank so far that he carried 
himself among the others, and stood there, half fright- 
ened, half dumfounded. 

Pomfrette pulled out a greasy dollar-bill from his 
pocket — the last he owned in the world — and threw it 
on the counter. Then he reached over, caught up a 
brandy-bottle from the shelf, knocked of¥ the neck with 
a knife, and, pouring a tumblerful, drank it off at a 
gasp. 

His head came up, his shoulders straightened out, his 
eyes snapped fire. He laughed aloud, a sardonic, wild, 
coarse laugh, and he shivered once or twice violently, 
in spite of the brandy he had drunk. 

“ You won’t speak to me, eh? Won’t you? Curse 
you ! Pass me on the other side — so ! Look at me. 
I am the worst man in the world, eh? Judas is noth- 
ing — no ! Ack ! What are you, to turn your back on 
me? Listen to me! You, there, Muroc, with your 
charcoal face, who was it walk thirty miles in the dead 
of winter to bring a doctor to your wife, eh ? She die, 
but that is no matter. Who was it ? It was Luc Pom- 
frette. You, Alphonse Durien, who was it drag you 
out of the bog at the Cote Chaudiere? It was Luc 
Pomfrette. You, Jacques Baby, who was it that lied 
for you to the Protestant girl at Faribeau? Just Luc 
Pomfrette. You two, Jean and Nicolas Mariban, who 
was it lent you a hundred dollars when you lost all 
your money at cards? Ha, ha, ha! Only that beast 
Luc Pomfrette ! Mother of heaven ! such a beast is 
he — eh, Limon Rouge ? — such a beast that used to give 


20 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


your Victorine little silver things, and feed her with 
bread and sugar and buttermilk pop. Ah, my dear 
Limon Rouge, how is it all different now ! ” 

He raised the bottle and drank long from the ragged 
neck. When he took it away from his mouth not 
much more than half remained in the quart bottle. 
Blood was dripping upon his beard from a cut on his 
lip, and from there to the ground. 

“ And you, M’sieu’ Bourienne ! ” he cried hoarsely. 
“ Do I not remember that dear M’sieu’ Bourienne, 
when he beg me to leave Pontiac for a little while that 
I do not give evidence in court against him ? Eh bien! 
you all walk by me now, as if I was the father of small- 
pox, and not Luc Pomfrette — only Luc Pomfrette, who 
spits at every one of you for a pack of cowards and 
hypocrites.” 

He thrust the bottle inside his coat, went to the door, 
flung it open with a bang, and strode out into the 
street, muttering as he went. As the landlord came to 
close the door Medallion said : 

“ The leper has a memory, my friends.” Then he 
also walked out, and went to his office depressed, for 
the face of the man haunted him. 

Pomfrette reached his deserted, cheerless house. 
There was not a stick of fire-wood in the shed, not a 
thing to eat or drink in cellar or cupboard. The door 
of the shed at the back was open, and the dog-chains 
lay covered with frost and half embedded in mud. 
With a shiver of misery Pomfrette raised the brandy to 
his mouth, drank every drop, and threw the bottle on 
the floor. Then he went to the front door, opened it, 
and stepped outside. His foot slipped, and he tumbled 
head forward into the snow. Once or twice he half 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 21 


raised himself, but fell back again, and presently lay 
still. The frost caught his ears and iced them ; it be- 
gan to creep over his cheeks ; it made his fingers white, 
like a leper’s. 

He would soon have stiffened forever had not Par- 
pon the dwarf, passing along the road, seen the open 
door and the sprawling body, and come and drawn 
Pomfrette inside the house. He rubbed the face and 
hands and ears of the unconscious man with snow till 
the whiteness disappeared, and taking off the boots, 
did the same with the toes; after which he drew the 
body to a piece of rag carpet beside the stove, threw 
some blankets over it, and hurrying out, cut up some 
fence rails, and soon had a fire going in the stove. 

Then he trotted out of the house and away to the 
Little Chemist, who came passively with him. All that 
day, and for many days, they fought to save Pom- 
frette’s life. The Cure came also, but Pomfrette was 
in fever and delirium. Yet the good M. Fabre’s pres- 
ence, as it ever did, gave an air of calm and comfort to 
the place. Parpon’s hands alone cared for the house ; 
he did all that was to be done ; no woman had entered 
the place since Pomfrette’s cousin, old Mme. Bur- 
goyne, left it on the day of his shame. 

When at last Pomfrette opened his eyes, and saw the 
Cure standing beside him, he turned his face to the 
wall, and to the exhortation addressed to him he an- 
swered nothing. At last the Cure left him, and came 
no more, and he bade Parpon do the same as soon as 
Pomfrette was able to leave his bed. 

But Parpon did as he willed. He had been in Pon- 
tiac only a few days since the painful business in front 
of the Louis Quinze. Where he had been and what 
doing no one asked, for he was mysterious in his move- 


22 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


merits, and always uncommunicative, and people did 
not care to tempt his inhospitable tongue. When Pom- 
frette was so far recovered that he might be left alone, 
Parpon said to him one evening : 

“ Pomfrette, you must go to mass next Sunday.” 

“ I said I wouldn’t go till I was carried there, and I 
mean it — that’s so,” was the morose reply. 

“What made you curse like that — so damnable?” 
asked Parpon, furtively. 

“ That’s my own business. It doesn’t matter to any- 
body but me.” 

“ And you said the Cure lied — the good M’sieu’ 
Fabre — him like a saint.” 

“ I said he lied, and I’d say it again, and tell the 
truth.” 

“ But if you went to mass, and took your penance, 
and ' 

“ Yes, I know ; they’d forgive me, and I’d get absolu- 
tion, and they’d all speak to me again, and it would be, 
' Good day, Luc,’ and ‘ Very good, Luc,’ and ‘ What a 
gay heart has Luc, the good fellow ! ’ Ah, I know. 
They curse in the heart when the whole world go 
wrong for them ; no one hears. I curse out loud. I’m 
not a hypocrite, and no one thinks me fit to live. Ack ! 
what is the good ? ” 

Parpon did not respond at once. At last, dropping 
his chin in his hand and his elbow on his knee, as he 
squatted on the table, he said : 

“ But if the girl got sorry ” 

For a time there was no sound save the whirring of 
the fire in the stove and the hard breathing of the sick 
man. His eyes were staring hard at Parpon. At last 
he said slowly and fiercely : 

“ What do you know ? ” 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 25 


“ What others might know if they had eyes and 
sense ; but they haven’t. What would you do if that 
Junie come back? ” 

“ I would kill her ! ” His look was murderous. 

“ Bah ! you would kiss her first, just the same.” 

“ What of that ? I would kiss her because — because 
there is no face like hers in the world ; and I’d kill her 
for her bad heart, and because I hate her bad heart.” 

“ What did she do?” 

Pomfrette’s hands clinched. 

“ What is in my own noddle, and not for any one 
else,” he answered sulkily. 

“ Tiens! Hens! what a close mouth ! What did she do ? 
Who knows? What you think she do, it’s this. You 
think she pretends to love you, and you leave all your 
money with her. She is to buy masses for your father’s 
soul ; she is to pay money to the Cure for the good of 
the Church ; she is to buy a little here, a little there, for 
the house you and she are going to live in, the wedding 
and the dancing over. Very well. Ah, my Pomfrette, 
what is the end you think? She run away with Dicey 
the Protestant, and take your money with her. Eh, is 
that so ? ” 

For answer there came a sob, and then a terrible 
burst of weeping and anger and passionate denuncia- 
tions — against Junie Gauloir, against Pontiac, against 
the world. 

Parpon held his peace. 

The days, weeks, and months went by, and the 
months stretched to three years. 

In all that time Pomfrette came and went through 
Pontiac, shunned and unrepentant. His silent, gloomy 
endurance was almost an affront to Pontiac ; and if the 
wiser ones, the Cure, the Avocat, the Little Chemist, 


24 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


and Medallion, were more sorry than offended, they 
stood aloof till the man should in some manner redeem 
himself, and repent of his horrid blasphemy. But one 
person persistently defied church and people, Cure 
and voyageur. Parpon openly and boldly walked with 
Pomfrette, talked with him, and occasionally visited 
his house. 

Luc made hard shifts to live. He grew everything 
that he ate, vegetables and grains. Parpon showed 
him how to make his own flour in primitive fashion, 
for no miller in any parish near would sell him flour, nor 
had he money to buy it, nor would any one who knew 
him give him work. And after his return to Pontiac 
he never asked for it. His mood was defiant, morbid, 
stern. His wood he chopped from the common 
known as No-Man’s-Land. His clothes he made him- 
self out of the skins of deer that he shot ; when his pow- 
der and shot gave out he killed the deer with bow and 
arrow. 

HI. 

The end came at last. Luc was taken ill. For four 
days, all alone, he lay burning with fever and inflamma- 
tion, and when Parpon found him he was almost dead. 
Then began a fight for life again, in which Parpon was 
the only physician ; for Pomfrette would not allow the 
Little Chemist or a doctor near him. Parpon at last 
gave up hope ; but one night, when he came back from 
the village, he saw, to his joy, old Mme. Degardy 
(“ crazy Joan ” she was called) sitting by Pomfrette’s 
bedside. He did not disturb her, for she had no love 
for him, and he waited till she had gone. When he 
came into the room again he found Pomfrette in a 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 25 


sweet sleep, and a jug of tincture, with a little tin cup, 
placed by the bed. Time and again he had sent for 
Madame Degardy, but she would not come. She had 
answered that the dear Luc could go to the devil for all 
of her ; he’d find better company there than in Pontiac. 

But for a whim, perhaps, she had come at last with- 
out asking, and as a consequence Luc returned to the 
world a mere bundle of bones. 

It was still while he was only a bundle of bones that 
one Sunday morning Parpon, without a word, lifted 
him up in his arms and carried him out of the house. 
Pomfrette did not speak at first: it seemed scarcely 
worth while ; he was so weak he did not care. 

“Where are you going?” he said at last, as they 
came well into the village. The bell in St. Saviour’s 
had stopped ringing for Mass, and the streets were 
almost empty. 

“ I’m taking you to Mass,” said Parpon, puffing 
under his load, for Pomfrette made an ungainly bur- 
den. 

“ Hand of a little devil, no ! ” cried Pomfrette, 
startled. “ I said I’d never go to Mass again, and I 
never will.” 

“ You said you’d never go to Mass till you were car- 
ried ; so it’s all right.” 

Once or twice Pomfrette struggled, but Parpon held 
him tight, saying : 

“ It’s no use ; you must come ; we’ve had enough. 
Besides ” 

“ Besides what? ” asked Pomfrette, faintly. 

“ Never mind,” answered Parpon. 

At a word from Parpon the shriveled old sexton 
cleared a way through the aisle, making a stir, through 
which the silver bell at Pomfrette’s knee tinkled, in 


26 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


answer, as it were, to the tinkling of the acolyte’s bell 
in the sanctuary. People turned at the sound, women 
stopped telling their beads, some of the choir forgot 
their chanting. A strange feeling passed through the 
church, and reached and startled the Cure as he re- 
cited the Mass. Pie turned round and saw Parpon 
laying Pomfrette down at the chancel steps. His 
voice shook a little as he intoned the sacred ritual, and 
as he raised the sacred elements tears rolled down his 
cheeks. 

From a distant corner of the gallery a deeply veiled 
woman also looked down at Pomfrette, and her hand 
trembled on the desk before her. 

At last the Cure came forward to the chancel steps. 

“ What is it, Parpon ? ” he asked gravely. 

It is Luc Pomfrette, M’sieu’ le Cure.” Pomfrette’s 
eyes were closed. 

“ He swore that he would never come to Mass 
again,” answered the good priest. 

“ Till he was carried, M’sieu’ le Cure — and I’ve car- 
ried him.” 

“ Did you come of your own free will, and with a 
repentant heart, Luc Pomfrette ? ” asked the Cure. 

“ I did not know I was coming — no.” Pomfrette’s 
brown eyes met the priest’s unflinchingly. 

“ You have defied God, and yet he has spared your 
life.” 

“ I’d rather have died,” answered the sick man, 
simply. 

“ Died, and been cast to perdition ! ” 

“ I’m used to that ; I’ve had a bad time here in 
Pontiac.” 

His thin hands moved restlessly. His leg moved, 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 27 

and the little bell tinkled — the bell that had been like 
the bell of a leper these years past. 

“ But you live, and you have years yet before you, 
in the providence of God. Luc Pomfrette, you blas- 
phemed against your baptism, and horribly against 
God himself. Luc ” — his voice got softer — “ I knew 
your mother, and she was almost too weak to hold 
you when you were baptized, for you made a great 
to-do about coming into the world. She had a face 
like a saint — so sweet, so patient. You were her only 
child, and your baptism was more to her than her 
marriage even, or any other thing in this world. The 
day after your baptism she died. What do you think 
were her last words ? ” 

There was a hectic flush on Pomfrette’s face, and his 
eyes were intense and burning as they looked up 
fixedly at the Cure. 

“ I can’t think any more,” answered Pomfrette, 
slowly. I’ve no head.” 

“ What she said is for your heart, not for your head, 
Luc,” rejoined the Cure, gently. ‘‘ She wandered in 
her mind, and at the last she raised herself up in her 
bed, and lifting her finger like this ” — he made the 
gesture of benediction — “ she said, ‘ Luc Michee, I 
baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, 
and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.’ Then she whis- 
pered softly : ‘ God bless my dear Luc Michee ! Holy 
Mother, pray for him ! ’ These were her last words, 
and I took you from her arms. What have you to 
say, Luc Michee? ” 

The woman in the gallery was weeping silently be- 
hind her thick veil, and her worn hand clutched the 
desk in front of her convulsively. Presently she arose 
and made her way down the stair, almost unnoticed. 


28 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


Two or three times Luc tried to speak, but could not. 

“ Lift me up ! ” he said brokenly, at last. 

Parpon and the Little Chemist raised him to his 
feet, and held him, his shaking hands resting on their 
shoulders, hi§ lank body tottering above and between 
them. 

Looking at the congregation, he said slowly : “ Til 
suffer till I die for cursing my baptism, and God will 
twist my neck in purgatory for ” 

“ Luc,” the Cure interrupted, “ say that you repent.” 

“ Pm sorry, and I ask you all to forgive me, and Fll 

confess to the Cure, and take my penance, and ” 

he paused, for breathing hurt him. 

At that moment the woman in black who had been 
in the gallery came quickly forward. Parpon saw 
her, frowned, and waved her back; but she came on. 
At the chancel steps she raised her veil, and a mur- 
mur of recognition and wonder ran through the 
church. Pomfrette’s face was pitiful to see — drawn, 
staring. 

“ Junie Gauloir ! ” he said hoarsely. 

Her eyes were red with weeping, her face was very 
pale. 

M’sieu’ le Cure,” she said, “ you must listen to 
me ” — the Cure’s face had become forbidding — 
sinner though I am. You want to be just, don’t you? 
Ah, listen ! I was to be married to Luc Pomfrette, but 
I did not love him — then. He had loved me for years, 
and his father and my father wished it — as you know, 
M’sieu’ le Cure. So after a while I said I would ; but 
I begged him that he wouldn’t say anything about it 
till he come back from his next journey on the river. 
I did not love him enough — then. He left all his 
money with me : some to pay for Masses for his father’s 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 


29 

soul, some to buy things for — for our home, and the 
rest to keep till he came back.’^ 

“ Yes, yes,’' said Pomfrette, his eyes fixed painfully 
on her face ; “ yes, yes ! ” 

‘‘ The day after Luc went away John Dicey the 
Protestant come to me. I’d always liked him ; he could 
talk as Luc couldn’t, and it sounded nice. I listened 
and listened. He knew about Luc and about the 
money and all. Then he talked to me. I was all wild 
in the head, and things went round and round, and oh, 
how I hated to marry Luc — then ! So after he had 
talked a long while I said yes, I would go with him and 
marry him — a Protestant; for I loved him. I don’t 
know why or how.” 

Pomfrette trembled so that Parpon and the Little 
Chemist made him sit down, and he leaned against 
their shoulders, while Junie went on. 

‘‘ I gave him Luc’s money to go and give to Parpon 
here, for I was too ashamed to go myself. And I wrote 
a little note to Luc, and sent it with the money. I be- 
lieved in John Dicey, of course. He came back, and 
said that he had seen Parpon and had done it all right ; 
then we went away to Montreal and got married. The 
very first day at Montreal I found out that he had Luc’s 
money. It was awful ; I went mad, and he got angry 
and left me alone, and didn’t come back. A week after- 
wards he was killed, and I didn’t know it for a long 
time. But I began to work, for I wanted to pay back 
Luc’s money. It was very slow, and I worked hard. 
Will it never be finished, I say. At last Parpon find 
me, and I tell him all — all except that John Dicey was 
dead, and I did not know that. I made him promise 
to tell nobody, but he knows all about my life since 
then. Then I find out one day that John Dicey is dead. 


30 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


and I get from the gover’ment a hundred dollars of the 
money he stole. It was found on him when he was 
killed. I work for six months longer, and now I come 
back — with Luc’s money.” 

She drew from her pocket a packet of notes, and put 
it in Luc’s hands. He took it dazedly, then dropped it, 
and the Little Chemist picked it up; he had no pre- 
scription like that in his pharmacopoeia. 

“ That’s how I’ve lived,” she said, and she handed a 
letter to the Cure. 

It was from a priest in Montreal, setting forth the 
history of her career in that city, her repentance for 
her elopement and the sin of marrying a Protestant, 
and her good life. She had wished to do her penance in 
Pontiac, and it remained to M’sieu’ le Cure to set it. 
The Cure’s face relaxed, and a rare gentleness came 
into it. 

He read the letter aloud. Luc once more struggled 
to his feet, eagerly listening. 

“You did not love Luc?” the Cure asked Junie, 
meaningly. 

“ I did not love Luc — then,” she answered, a flush 
going over her face. 

“ You loved Junie? ” the Cure said to Pomfrette. 

“ I could have killed her, but I’ve always loved 
her,” answered Luc. Then he raised his voice ex- 
citedly. “ I love her, love her, love her — but what’s 
the good ! She’d never Ve been happy with me. Look 
what my love drove her to! What’s the good, at 
all I ” 

“ She said she did not love you then, Luc Michee,” 
said Parpon, interrupting. “ Luc Michee, you’re a 
fool as well as a sinner. Speak up, Junie.” 

“ I used to tell him that I didn’t love him ; I only 


THE LITTLE BELL OF HONOUR 31 

liked him. I was honest. Well, I am honest still. I 
love him now.’’ 

A sound of joy broke from Luc’s lips, and he 
stretched out his arms to her, but the Cure stopped 
that. 

“ Not here,” he said. “ Your sins must first be con- 
sidered. For penance — ” He paused, looking at the 
two sad yet happy beings before him. The deep knowl- 
edge of life that was in him impelled him to continue 
gently : 

“ For penance you shall bear the remembrance of 
each other’s sins. And now to God the Father ” 

He turned toward the altar, and raised his hands in 
the ascription. 

As he knelt to pray before he entered the pulpit, he 
heard the tinkling of the little bell of honour at the knee 
of Luc, as Junie and Parpon helped him from the 
church. 


A SON OF THE WILDERNESS 


R ACHETTE told the story to Medallion and the 
Little Chemist’s wife on Sunday after Mass, and 
because he was vain of his English he forsook his own 
tongue and paid tribute to the Anglo-Saxon. 

“ Ah, she was so purty, that Norinne, when she drive 
through the parishes all twelve days, after the wedding, 
a dance every night, and her eyes and cheeks on fire all 
the time. And Bargon, bagosh ! that Bargon, he have 
a pair of shoulders like a wall, and five hunder’ dollars 
and a horse and wagon. Bagosh! I say that time, 
‘ Bargon he have put a belt round the world and buckle 
it tight to him — all right, ver’ good.’ I say to him : 
‘ Bargon, what you do when you get ver’ rich out on 
the Souris River in the prairie west ? ’ He laugh and 
throw up Ids hands, for he have not many words any 
kind. And the damn little dwarf Parpon, he say : ‘He 
will have flowers on the table and ice on the butter, 
and a wheel in his head.’ 

“ And Bargon laugh and say : ‘ I will have plenty for 
my friends to eat and drink and a ver’ fine time.’ 

Good I ’ we all say — ‘ Bagosh I ’ 

“ So they make the trip through twelve parish, and 
the fiddles go all the time, and I am what you say best 
man with Bargon. I go all the time, and Lucette Dar- 
gois, she go with me and her brother — holy ! what an 
eye had she in her head, that Lucette ! As we go we 


A SON OF THE WILDERNESS 


33 

sing a song all right, and there is no one sing so better 
as Norinne : 

‘ C’est la belle Fran5oise, 

Aliens gai ! 

C’est la belle Fran9oise, 

Qui vient se marier, 

Ma luron lurette ! 

Qui veut se marier, 

Ma luron lure ! ’ 

“ Ver’ good, bagosh ! Norinne and Bargon they go 
out to the Souris, and Bargon have a hunder’ acre, and 
he put up a house and a shed not ver’ big, and he carry 
his head high and his shoulders like a wall ; yes, yes. 
First year it is pretty good time, and Norinne’s cheeks 
— ah, like an apple they. Bimeby a baby laugh up at 
Bargon from Norinne’s lap. I am on the Souris at a 
sawmill then, and on Sunday sometime I go up to see 
Bargon and Norinne. I t’ink that baby is so damn 
funny ; I laugh and pinch his nose ; his name is Marie, 
and I say I marry him pretty quick some day. We have 
plenty hot cake, and beans and pork, and a little how- 
you-are from a jar behin’ the door. 

“ Next year it is not so good. There is a bad crop 
and hard times, and Bargon he owe two hunder’ dollar, 
and he pay int’rest. Norinne, she do all the work, and 
that little Marie, there is damn funny in him, and No- 
rinne, she keep go, go, all the time, early and late, and 
she get ver’ thin and quiet. So I go up from the mill 
more times, and I bring fol-lols for that Marie, for you 
know I said I go to marry him some day. And when I 
see how Bargon shoulders stoop and his eye get dull, 
and there is nothing in the jar behin’ the door, I fetch 
a horn with me, and my fiddle, and, bagosh ! there is 
happy sit-you-down. I make Bargon sing ‘ La Belle 


34 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


Frangoise/ and then just before I go I make them 
laugh, for I stand by the cradle and I sing to that 
Marie : 

“ ‘ Adieu, belle Fran^oise ; 

Aliens gai ! 

Adieu, belle Fran9oise ! 

Moi, je te marierai, 

Ma luron lurette ! 

Moi, je te marierai, 

Ma luron lure ! ’ 

“ So ; and another year it go along, and Bargon he 
know that if there come bad crop it is good-bye-my- 
lover with himselves. He owe two hunder’ and fifty 
dollar. It is the spring at Easter, and I go up to him 
and Norinne, for there is no Mass, and Pontiac is too 
far away off. We stan’ at the door and look out, and 
all the prairie is green, and the sun stan’ up high like a 
light on a pole, and the birds fly by ver’ busy looking 
for the summer and the prairie-flower. 

“ ‘ Bargon,’ I say — and I give him a horn of old rye 
— ‘ here’s to le bon Dieu ! ’ 

“ ‘ Le bon Dieu, and a good harvest ! ’ he say. 

I hear some one give a long breath behind, and I 
look round ; but, no ! it is Norinne with a smile — for 
she never grumble — bagosh ! What purty eyes she 
have in her head ! She have that Marie in her arms, 
and I say to Bargon it is like the Madonna in the Notre 
Dame at Montreal. He nod his head. ‘ C’est le bon 
Dieu — it is the good God,’ he say. 

“ Before I go I take a piece of palm — it come from 
the Notre Dame ; it is all bless by the Pope — and I nail 
it to the door of the house. ‘ For luck,’ I say. Then I 
laugh, and I speak out to the prairie : ‘ Come along, 
good summer ; come along, good crop ; come two hun- 

1 . 


A SON OF THE WILDERNESS 


35 


der’ and fifty dollars for Gal Bargon.’ Ver’ quiet I 
give Norinne twenty dollar, but she will not take him. 
‘ For Marie,’ then I say; ‘ I go to marry him, bimeby.’ 
But she say, ‘ Keep it and give it to Marie yourself 
some day.’ 

“ She smile at me, then she have a little tear in her 
eye, and she nod to where Bargon stan’ houtside, and 
she say : ‘ If this summer go wrong, it will kill him. 
He work and work and fret and worry for me and 
Marie, and sometimes he just sit and look at me and 
say not a word.’ 

“ I say to her that there will be good crop, and next 
year we will be ver’ happy. So, the time go on, and I 
send up a leetla snack of pork and molass’ and tabac, 
and sugar and tea, and I get a letter from Bargon bime- 
by, and he say that heverything go right, he t’ink, this 
summer. He say I must come up. It is not damn 
easy to go in the summer, when the mill run night and 
day, but I say I will go. 

“ When I get up to Bargon’s I laugh, for all the hun- 
der’ acre is ver’ fine, and Bargon stan’ hin the door, 
and stretch out his hand, and say : ‘ Rachette, there is 
six hunder’ dollar for me.’ I nod my head, and fetch 
out a horn, and he have one, his eyes all bright like a 
lime-kiln. He is thin and square, and his beard grow 
ver’ thick and rough and long, and his hands are like 
planks. Norinne, she is ver’ happy, too, and Marie 
bite on my finger, and I give him sugar stick to suck. 

“ Bimeby Norinne say to me, ver’ soft : ‘ If a hail- 
storm or a hot wind come, that is the end of it all, and 
of my poor Gal.’ 

“ What I do ? I laugh and ketch Marie under the 
arms, and I sit down, and I put him on my foot, and I 
sing that damn funny English song — ‘ Here We Ga 


36 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

to Banbury Cross.’ An’ I say : ‘ It will be all as happy 
as Marie pretty quick. Bargon he will have six hun- 
der’ dollar, and you a new dress and a hired girl to help 
you.’ 

“ But all the time that day I think about a hailstorm 
or a hot wind whenever I look out on that hunder’ 
acre farm. It is so beautibul, as you can guess — the 
wheat, the barley, the corn, the potatoes, the turnip, all 
green like sea water, and pigeons and wild ducks flying 
up and down, and the horse and the ox standing in a 
field ver’ comfer’ble. 

“ We have good time that day, and go to bed all 
happy that night. I get up at five o’clock, an’ I go 
hout. Bargon stan’ there looking out on his field with 
the horse bridle in his hand. ‘ The air not feel right,’ 
he say to me. I t’ink the same, but I say to him : 
‘ Your head not feel right — him too sof’.’ He shake 
his head and go down to the field for his horse and ox, 
and hitch them up together, and go to work making a 
road. 

“ It is about ten o’clock when the damn thing come. 
Piff ! go a hot splash of air in my face, and then I know 
that it is all up with Gal Bargon. A month after it is 
no matter, for the grain is ripe then, but now, when it 
is green, it is sure death to it all. I turn sick in my 
stomich, and I turn round and see Norinne stan’ hin 
the door, all white, and she make her hand go as that, 
like she push back that hot wind. 

“ ‘ Where is Gal ? ’ she say. ‘ I must go to him.’ 
' No,’ I say, ‘ I will fetch him. You stay with Marie.’ 
Then I go ver’ quick for Gal, and I find him, his hands 
all shut like that ! and he shake them at the sky, and he 
say not a word, but his face, it go wild, and his eyes 
spin round in his head. I put my hand on his arm 


A SON OF THE WILDERNESS 


37 

and say : ‘ Come home, Gal. Come home, and speak 
kind to Norinne and Marie.’ 

“ I can see that hot wind lean down and twist the 
grain about — a damn devil thing from the Arzone des- 
ert down South. I take Gal back home, and we sit 
there all day, and all the nex’ day, and a leetla more, 
and when we have look enough, there is no grain on 
that hunder’ acre farm — only a dry-up prairie, all gray 
and limp. My skin is bake and rough, but when I look 
at Gal Bargon I know that his heart is dry like a bone, 
and, as Parpon say that back time, he have a wheel in 
his head. Norinne she is quiet, and she sit with her 
hand on his shoulder, and give him Marie to hold. 

“ But it is no good ; it is all over. So I say : ‘ Let us 
go back to Pontiac. What is the good for to be rich ? 
Let us be poor and happy once more.’ 

“ And Norinne she look glad, and go up and say : 

^ Yes, let us go back.’ But all at once she sit down 
with Marie in her arms, and cry — bagosh ! I never see 
a woman cry like that. 

“ So we start back for Pontiac with the horse and the 
ox and some pork and bread and molass’. But Gal 
Bargon never hold up his head, but go silent, silent, 
and he not sleep at night. One night he walk away 
on the prairie, and when he come back he have a great 
pain. So he lie down, and we sit by him, an’ he die. 
But once he whisper to me, and Norinne not hear: 

^ You say you will marry him, Rachette ? ’ and I say, ‘ E 
will.’ 

“ ‘ C’est le bon Dieu ! ’ he say at the last, but he say ft 
with a little laugh. I think he have a wheel in his 
head. But bimeby, yiste’day, Norinne and Marie and 
I come to Pontiac.” 

The Little Chemist’s wife dried her eyes, and Medal- 


38 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


lion said in French : “ Poor Norinne ! Poor Norinne ! 
And so, Rachette, you are going to marry Marie, by 
and by ? ” There was a quizzical look in Medallion's 
eyes. 

Rachette threw up his chin a little. “ Pm going to 
marry Norinne on New Year’s Day,” he said. 

“ Bagosh ! poor Norinne,” said Medallion, in a queer 
sort of tone. “ It is the way of the world,” he added. 
“ I’ll wait for Marie myself.” 

It looks as if he meant to, for she has no better friend. 
He talks to her much of Gal Bargon; of which her 
mother is glad, for there is but one great love in a 
woman’s life. All others have different names and 
meanings. 


A WORKER IN STONE 


T the beginning he was only a tombstone-cutter. 



His name was Frangois Lagarre. He was but 
twenty years old when he stepped into the shop, where 
the old tombstone-cutter had worked for forty years. 
Picking up the hammer and chisel which the old man 
had dropped when he fell dead at the end of a long hot 
day's labour, he finished the half-carved tombstone, 
and gave the price of it to the widow. Then, going to 
the Seigneur and Cure, he asked them to buy the shop 
and tools for him, and let him pay rent until he could 
take the place off their hands. 

They did as he asked, and in two years he had 
bought and paid for the place, and had a few dollars to 
the good. During one of the two years a smallpox 
epidemic passed over Pontiac, and he was busy night 
and day. It was during this time that some good 
Catholics came to him with an heretical Protestant 
suggestion to carve a couplet or verse of poetry on the 
tombstones they ordered. They themselves, in most 
•cases, knew none, and they asked Frangois to supply 
them — as though he kept them in stock like marble 
and sandpaper. He had no collection of suitable epi- 
taphs, and, besides, he did not know whether it was 
right to use them. Like all his race in New France 
he was jealous of any inroads of Protestantism, or what 
the Little Chemist called '' Englishness." The good 
M. Fabre, the Cure, saw no harm in it, but said he 


2 ' 


40 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

could not speak for any one’s grief. What the be- 
reaved folk felt they themselves must put in words 
upon the stone. But still Francois might bring all the 
epitaphs to him before they were carved, and he would 
approve or disapprove, correct or reject, as the case 
might be. 

At first he rejected many, for they were mostly ster- 
eotyped verses, taken unknowingly from Protestant 
sources by mourning Catholics. But presently all 
that was changed, and the Cure one day had laid before 
him three epitaphs, each of which left his hand unre- 
vised and untouched ; and when he passed them back to 
Francois his eyes were moist, for he was a man truly 
after God’s own heart, and full of humanity. 

“ Will you read them to me, Frangois? ” he said, as 
the worker in stone was about to put the paper back in 
his pocket. “ Give the names of the dead at the same 
time.” 

So Francois read : 

“ Gustave Narrois, aged seventy-two years ” 

“ Yes, yes,’^ interrupted the Cure, “ the unhappy yet 
happy Gustave, hung by the English, and cut down 
just in time to save him — an innocent man. For thirty 
years my sexton. God rest his soul ! Well now, the 
epitaph.” 

Francois read it : 

“ Poor as a sparrow was I, 

Yet I was saved like a king ; 

I heard the death-bells ring, 

Yet I saw a light in the sky : 

And now to my Father I wing.” 

The Cure nodded his head. “ Go on ; the next,” he 
said. 


A WORKER IN STONE 


41 


“ Annette John, aged twenty years ” 

“ So. The daughter of Chief John. When Queen 
Anne of England was on the throne she sent Chief 
John’s grandfather a gold cup and a hundred pounds. 
The girl loved, but would not marry, that she might 
keep Chief John from drinking. A saint, Francois ! 
What have they said of her ? ” 

Francois smoothed out the paper and read : 

‘ ‘ A little while I saw the world go by — 

A little doorway that I called my own, ’ 

i A loaf, a cup of water, and a bed had I, 

A shrine of Jesus, where I knelt alone : 

And now alone I bid the world good-bye.” 

The Cure turned his head away. “ Go on,” he said 
sadly. Chief John has lost his right hand. Go on.” 

“ Henri Rouget ” 

“ Aged thirty years,” again interrupted the Cure. 

Henri Rouget, idiot; as young as the morning. For 
man grows old only by what he suffers, and what he 
forgives, and what he sins. What have you to say for 
Henri Rouget, my Francois? ” 

And Francois read : 

“ I was a fool ; nothing had I to know 

Of men, and naught to men had I to give. ' * 

God gave me nothing ; now to God I go. 

Now ask for pain, for bread. 

Life for my brain : dead. 

By God’s love I shall then begin to live.” 

The priest rose to his feet and put a hand on the 
young man’s shoulder. 

“ Do you know, Francois,” he said, half sadly, do 
you know, you have the true thing in you. Come often 


42 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


to me, my son, and bring all these things — all you 
write.” 

While the Cure troubled himself about his future, 
Erangois began to work upon a monument for the 
grave of a dozen soldiers of Pontiac who were killed in 
the War of the Patriots. They had died for a mistaken 
cause, and had been buried on the field of battle. Long 
ago something would have been done to commemorate 
them but that three of them were Protestants, and dif- 
ficulties had been raised by the bigoted. But Frangois 
thought only of the young men in their common grave 
at St. Eustache. He remembered when they went 
away one bright morning, full of the joy of an erring 
patriotism, of the ardor of a weak but fascinating cause : 
race against race, the conquered against the con- 
querors, the usurped against the usurpers. 

In the space before the parish church it stands — a 
broken shaft, with an unwound wreath straying down 
its sides ; a monument of fine proportions, a white 
figure of beaten valour and erring ardour of youth 
and beautiful bad ambition. One Saturday night it 
was not there, and when next morning the people came 
to Mass it was there. All night had Frangois and his 
men worked, and the first rays of the morning sun fell 
on the tall shivered shaft set firmly in its place. Fran- 
gois was a happy man. All else that he had done had 
been wholly after a crude, staring convention, after rule 
and measure — an artisan’s, a tombstone cutter’s 
labour. This was the work of a man with the heart 
and mind of an artist. When the people came to 
Mass they gazed and gazed, and now and then the 
weeping of a woman was heard, for among them were 
those whose sons and brothers were made memorable 
by this stone. 


A WORKER IN STONE 


43 


That day at the close of his sermon the Cure spoke 
of it, and said at the last : “ That white shaft, dear 
brethren, is for us a sign of remembrance and a warn- 
ing to our souls. In the name of race and for their love 
they sinned. But yet they sinned ; and this monument, 
the gift and work of one young like them, ardent and 
desiring like them, is for ever in our eyes the cruci- 
fixion of our wrong ambitions and our selfish aims. 
Nay, let us be wise and let us be good. They who rule 
us speak with foreign tongue, but their hearts desire our 
peace and a mutual regard. Pray that this be. And 
pray for the young and the daring and the foolish. 
And pray also that he who has given us here a good 
gift may find his thanks in our better-ordered lives, 
and that he may consecrate his parts and talents to 
the redeeming actions of this world.” 

And so began the awakening of Francois Lagarrej 
and so began his ambition and his peril. 

For, as he passed from the church, the Seigneur 
touched him on the shoulder and introduced him to 
his English grandniece, come on a visit for the sum- 
mer, the daughter of a London knight bachellor. She 
had but just arrived, and she was feeling that first 
home-sickness which succeeds transplanting. The 
face of the young worker in stone interested her; the 
idea of it all was romantic; the possibilities of the 
young man’s life opened out before her. Why should 
not she give him his real start, win his gratitude, help 
him to his fame, and then, when it was won, be pointed 
out as a discoverer and a patron ? 

All these things flashed through her mind as they 
were introduced. The young man did not read the 
look in her eyes, but there was one other person in the 
crowd about the church steps who did read it, whose 


44 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


heart beat furiously, whose foot tapped the ground 
angrily — a black-haired, brown-eyed farmer’s daugh- 
ter, who instantly hated the yellow hair and rosy and 
golden face of the blue-eyed London lady ; who could, 
that instant, have torn the silk gown from her graceful 
figure. 

She was not disturbed without reason. And for the 
moment, even when she heard impertinent and in- 
credulous fellows pooh-poohing the monument, and 
sharpening their rather dull wits upon its corners, she ‘ 
did not open her lips, when otherwise she would have 
spoken her mind with a vengeance ; for Jeanne March- 
and had a reputation for spirit and temper, and she 
spared no one when her blood was up. She had a 
touch of the vixen, an impetuous, loving, forceful 
mademoiselle, in marked contrast to the rather ascetic 
Francois, whose ways were more refined than his 
origin might seem to warrant. 

“ Sapr^! ” said Duclosse the mealman of the monu- 
ment ; “ it’s like a timber of cheese stuck up. What’s 
that to make a fuss about ? ” 

“ Fig of Eden,” muttered Jules Marmotte, with one 
eye on Jeanne, “ any fool could saw a better-looking 
thing out of ice ! ” 

“ Pish,” said fat Caroche the butcher, “ that Fran- 
cois has a rattle in his capote. He’d spent his time bet- 
ter chipping bones on my meat-block ! ” 

But Jeanne could not bear this — the greasy whop- 
ping butcher-man ! 

“ What ! what ! the messy stupid Caroche, who can’t 
write his name,” she said in a fury, “ the sausage-potted 
Caroche, who doesn’t remember that Frangois La- 
garre made his brother’s tombstone, and charged him 
nothing for the verses he wrote for it, nor for the Agnus 


A WORKER IN STONE 


45 


Dei he carved on it ! No, Caroche does not remember 
his brother Baptiste the fighter, as brave as Caroche is 
a coward ! He doesn’t remember the verse on Bap- 
tiste’s tombstone, does he ? ” 

Francois heard this speech, and his eyes lighted ten- 
derly as he looked at Jeanne: he loved this fury of 
defence and championship. Someone in the crowd 
turned to him and asked him to say the verses. At first 
he would not ; but when Caroche said that it was only 
his fun, that he meant nothing against Francois, the 
young man recited the words slowly — an epitaph on 
one who was little better than a prize-fighter, a splendid 
bully. 

Leaning a hand against the white shaft of the Pa- 
triots’ memory, he said : 

“ Blows I have struck, and blows a-many taken, 

Wrestling I’ve fallen, and I’ve rose up again ; 

Mostly I’ve stood — 

I’ve had good bone and blood ; 

Others went down though fighting might and main. 

Now death steps in — 

Death the price of sin. 

The fall it will be his ; and though I strive and strain, 

One blow will close my eyes, and I shall never waken.” 


“ Good enough for Baptiste,” said Duclosse the 
mealman. 

The wave of feeling was now altogether with Fran- 
gois, and presently he walked away with Jeanne 
Marchand and her mother, and the crowd dispersed. 
Jeanne was very happy for a few hours, but in the even- 
ing she was unhappy, for she saw Frangois going to- 
wards the house of the Seigneur; and during many 
weeks she was still more unhappy, for every three or 
four days she saw the same thing. 


46 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

Meanwhile Francois worked as he had never before 
worked in his life. Night and day he was shut in his 
shop, and for two months he came with no epitaphs 
for the Cure, and no new tombstones were set up in the 
graveyard. The influence of the lady at the Seigneury 
was upon him, and he himself believed it was for his 
salvation. She had told him of great pieces of sculp- 
ture she had seen, had sent and got from Quebec City, 
where he had never been, pictures of some of the 
world’s masterpieces in sculpture, and he had lost him- 
self in the study of them and in the depths of the girl’s 
eyes. She meant no harm; the man interested her 
beyond what was reasonable in one of his station in 
life. That was all, and all there ever was. 

Presently people began to gossip, and a story crept 
round that, in a new shed which he had built behind 
his shop, Francois was chiseling out of stone the nude 
figure of a woman. There were one or two who pro- 
fessed they had seen it. The wildest gossip said that 
the figure was that of the young lady at the Seigneury. 

FranQois saw no more of Jeanne Marchand; he 
thought of her sometimes, but that was all. A fever of 
work was on him. Twice she came to the shed where 
he laboured, and kfiocked at the door. The first time, 
he asked who was there. When she told him he 
opened the door just a little way, smiled at her, caught 
her hand and pressed it, and, when she would have 
entered, said, “No, no, another day, Jeanne!” and 
shut the door in her face. 

She almost hated him because he had looked so 
happy. Still another day she came knocking. She 
called to him, and this time he opened the door and 
admitted her. That very hour she had heard again 
Ihe story of the nude stone woman in the shed, and her 


A WORKER IN STONE 


47 


heart was full of jealousy, fury, and suspicion. He 
was very quiet, he seemed tired. She did not notice 
that. Her heart had throbbed wildly as she stepped 
inside the shed. She looked round, all delirious eager- 
ness for the nude figure. 

There it was, covered up with a great canvas ! Yes, 
there were the outlines of the figure. How shapely it 
seemed, even inside the canvas ! 

She stepped forward without a word, and snatched 
at the covering. He swiftly interposed and stopped 
her hand. 

“ I will see it,’’ she said. 

Not to-day,” he answered. 

“ I tell you I will ! ” She wrenched her hand free 
and caught at the canvas. A naked foot and ankle 
showed. He pinioned her wrists with one hand and 
drew her towards the door, determination and anger in 
his face. 

“You beast, you liar!” she said. “You beast! 
beast ! beast ! ” 

Then, with a burst of angry laughter, she opened the 
door herself. “ You ain’t fit to know,” she said ; “ they 
told the truth about you ! Now you can take the can- 
vas of¥ her. Good-bye ! ” With that she was gone. 

The following day was Sunday. Franqois did not 
attend Mass, and such strange scandalous reports had 
reached the Cure that he was both disturbed and indig- 
nant. That afternoon, after vespers (which Franqois 
did not attend), the Cure made his way to the sculp- 
tor’s workshop, followed by a number of parishioners. 

The crowd increased, and when the Cure knocked at 
the door it seemed as if half the village was there. 

The chief witness against Frangois had been Jeanne 
Marchand. That very afternoon she had told the Cure, 


48 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


with indignation and bitterness, that there was no 
doubt about it ; all that had been said was true. 

Francois, with wonder and some confusion, ad- 
mitted the Cure. When M. Fabre demanded that he 
be taken to the new workshop, Francois led the way. 
The crowd pushed after, and presently the place was 
full. A hundred eyes were fastened upon the canvas- 
covered statue, which had been the means of the young 
man’s undoing. 

Terrible things had been said — terrible things of 
Francois, and of the girl at the Seigneury. They 
knew the girl for a Protestant and an Englishwoman, 
and that in itself was a sort of sin. And now every ear 
was alert to hear what the Cure should say, what de- 
nunciation should come from his lips when the cover- 
ing was removed. For that it should be removed was 
the determination of every man present. Virtue was 
at its supreme height in Pontiac that day. Lajeunesse 
the blacksmith, Muroc the charcoal-man, and twenty 
others were as intent upon preserving a high standard 
of morality, by force of arms, as if another Tarquin 
were harbouring shame and crime in this cedar 
shed. 

The whole thing came home to Franqois with a 
choking smothering force. Art, now in its very birth 
in his heart and life, was to be garrotted. He had 
been unconscious of all the wicked things said about 
him : now he knew all ! 

“ Remove the canvas from the figure,” said the Cure 
sternly. Stubbornness and resentment filled Franqois’ 
breast. He did not stir. 

“Do you oppose the command of the Church?” 
said the Cure, still more severely ; “ remove the can- 


A WORKER IN STONE 


49 

“ It is my work — my own : my idea, my stone, and 
the labour of my hands,” said Francois doggedly. 

The Cure turned to Lajeunesse and made a motion 
towards the statue. Lajeunesse, with a burning right- 
eous joy, snatched off the canvas. There was one in- 
stant of confusion in the faces of all — of absolute 
silence. Then the crowd gasped. The Cure’s hat 
came off, and every other hat followed. The Cure 
made the sign of the cross upon his breast and fore- 
head, and every other man, woman and child present 
did the same. Then all knelt, save Frangois and the 
Cure himself. 

What they saw was a statue of Christ, a beautiful be- 
nign figure ; barefooted, with a girdle about his waist : 
the very truth and semblance of a man. The type was 
strong and yet delicate; vigorous and yet refined; 
crude and yet noble ; a leader of men — the God-Man, 
not the Man-God. 

After a moment’s silence the Cure spoke. “ Fran- 
<;ois, my son,” said he, “ we have erred. All we like 
sheep have gone astray ; we have followed each 
after his own way, but God hath laid on Him ” — 
he looked towards the statue — “ the iniquity of us 
all.” 

Franqois stood still a moment gazing at the Cure, 
doggedly, bitterly; then he turned and looked scorn- 
fully at the crowd, now risen to their feet again. 
Among them was a girl crying as if her heart would 
break. It was Jeanne Marchand. He regarded her 
coldly. 

“ You were so ready to suspect,” he said. 

Then he turned once more to the Cure. “ I meant 
it as my gift to the Church, monsieur le Cure — to Pon- 
tiac, where I was born again. I waked up here to 


50 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


what I might do in sculpture, and you — you all were 
so ready to suspect ! Take it, it is my last gift.” 

He went to the statue, touched the hands of it lov- 
ingly, and stooped and kissed the feet. Then, without 
more words, he turned and left the shed and the house. 

Pouring out into the street, the people watched him 
cross the bridge that led into another parish — and into 
another world: for from that hour Francois Lagarre 
was never seen in Pontiac. 

The statue that he made stands upon a little hill 
above the valley where the beaters of flax come in the 
autumn, through which the woodsmen pass in winter 
and in spring. But Frangois Lagarre, under another 
name, works in another land. 

While the Cure lived he heard of him and of his 
fame now and then, and to the day of his death he 
always prayed for him. He was wont to say to the 
little Avocat whenever Frangois' name was mentioned : 

“ The spirit of a man will support him^ but a 
wounded spirit who can bear f ” 


THE TRAGIC COMEDY OF ANNETTE 


T he chest of drawers, the bed, the bedding, the 
pieces of linen and the pile of yarn had been ready 
for many months. Annette had made inventory of them 
every day since the dot was complete — at first with a 
great deal of pride, after a time more shyly and wist- 
fully : Benoit did not come. He had said he would be 
down with the first drive of logs in the summer, and at 
the little church of St. Saviour they would settle every- 
thing and get the Cure’s blessing. Almost anybody 
would have believed in Benoit. He had the brightest 
scarf, the merriest laugh, the quickest eyes, and the 
blackest head in Pontiac; and no one among the river 
drivers could sing like him. That was, he said gaily, 
because his earrings were gold, and not brass like those 
of his comrades. Thus Benoit was a little vain, and 
something more; but old ladies such as the Little 
Chemist’s wife said he was galant. Probably only 
Medallion, the auctioneer, and the Cure did not lose 
themselves in the general admiration; they thought he 
was to Annette like a gas-jet to a holy candle. 

Annette was the youngest of twelve, and one of a 
family of thirty — for some of her married brothers and 
sisters and their children lived in her father’s long 
white house by the river. When Benoit failed to come 
in the spring, they showed their pity for her by abusing 
him ; and when she pleaded for him they said things 
which had an edge. They ended by offering to marry 


52 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

her to Farette, the old miller, to whom they owed 
money for flour. They brought Farette to the house 
at last, and she was patient while he ogled her, and 
smoked his strong tabac, and tried to sing. She was 
kind to him, and said nothing until, one day, urged by 
her brother Solime, he mumbled the childish chanson 
Benoit sang the day he left, as he passed their house 
going up the river — 

“ High in a nest of the tam’rac tree, 

Swing under, so free, and swing over ; 

Swing under the sun and swing over the world, 

My snow-bird, my gay little lover — 

My gay little lover, don, don / . . . don, don ! 

“ When the winter is done I will come back home, j 

To the nest swinging under and over. 

Swinging under and over and waiting for me, 

Your rover, my snow-bird, your rover — 

' Your lover and rover, don, don ! . . . don, don ! ” 


It was all very well in the mouth of the sprightly, 
sentimental Benoit ; it was hateful foolishness in 
Farette. Annette now came to her feet suddenly, her 
pale face showing defiance, and her big brown eyes 
flicking anger. She walked up to the miller and said: 
“ You are old and ugly and a fool ! But I do not hate 
you ; I hate Solime, my brother, for bringing you here. 
There is the bill for the flour? Well, I will pay it my- 
self — and you can go as soon as you like ! ” 

Then she put on her coat and capote and mittens, 
and went to the door. “ Where are you going, Ma’m’- 
selle ? ” cried Solime, in high rage. 

“ I am going to Monsieur Medallion,” she said. 
Hard profane words followed her, but she ran, and 


THE TRAGIC COMEDY OF ANNETTE 55 

never stopped till she came to Medallion’s house. He 
was not there. She found him at the Little Chemist’s. 

That night a pony and cart took away from the house 
of Annette’s father the chest of drawers, the bed, the 
bedding, the pieces of linen, and the pile of yarn which 
had been made ready so long against Benoit’s coming. 
Medallion had said he could sell them at once, and he 
gave her the money that night; but this was after he 
had had a talk with the Cure, to whom Annette had 
told all. Medallion said he had been able to sell the 
things at once, but he did not tell her that they were 
stored in a loft of the Little Chemist’s house, and that 
the Little Chemist’s wife had wept over them and car- 
ried the case to the shrine of the Blessed Virgin. 

It did not matter that the father and brothers 
stormed. Annette was firm; the dot was hers, and she 
would do as she wished. She carried the money to 
the miller. He took it grimly, and gave her a receipt, 
grossly mis-spelled, and, as she was about to go, 
brought his fist heavily down on his leg and said: ‘'Mon 
Dieu! It is brave — it is grand — it is an angel.” Then 
he chuckled: “ So, so! It was true! I am old, ugly, 
and a fool. Eh, well! I have my money.” Then he 
took to counting it over in his hand, forgetting her, 
and she left him growling gleefully over it. 

She had not a happy life, but her people left her 
alone, for the Cure had said stern things to them. All 
during the winter she went out fishing every day at a 
great hole in the ice — bitter cold work, and fit only for 
a man ; but she caught many fish, and little by little had 
aside pennies to buy things to replace what she had 
sold. It had been a hard trial to her to sell them. But 
for the kind-hearted Cure she would have repined. 
The worst thing happened, however, when the ring 


54 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


Benoit had given her dropped from her thin finger into 
the water where she was fishing. Then a shadow 
descended on her, and she grew almost unearthly in 
the anxious patience of her face. The Little Chemist’s 
wife declared that the look was death. Perhaps it 
would have been if Medallion had not sent a lad down 
to the bottom of the river and got the ring. He gave it 
to the Cure, who put it on her finger one day after con- 
fession. Then she brightened, and waited on and on 
patiently. 

She waited for seven years. Then the deceitful 
Benoit came pensively back to her, a cripple from a 
timber accident. She believed what he told her : and 
that was where her comedy ended and her tragedy 
began. 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE MILLER 


M edallion put it into his head on the day that 
Benoit and Annette were married. “ See/^ 
said Medallion, “ Annette wouldn’t have you — and 
quite right — and she took what was left of that Benoit, 
who’ll laugh at you over his mush-and-milk.” 

“ Benoit will want flour some day, with no money.” 
The old man chuckled and rubbed his hands. 

“ That’s nothing ; he has the girl — an angel ! ” 

“ Good enough ! That is what I said of her — an 
angel! ” 

“ Get married yourself, Farette.” 

For reply Farette thrust a bag of native tahac inta 
Medallion’s hands. Then they went over the narnes 
of the girls in the village. Medallion objected to those 
for whom he wished a better future, but they decided 
at last on Julie Lachance, who. Medallion thought, 
would in time profoundly increase Farette’s respect for 
the memory of his first wife ; for Julie was not an angel. 
Then the details were ponderously thought out by the 
miller, and ponderously acted upon, with the dry ap- 
proval of Medallion, who dared not tell the Cure of 
his complicity, though he was without compunction. 
He had a sense of humour, and knew there could be no 
tragedy in the thing — for Julie, But the miller was a 
careful man and original in his methods. He still pos- 
sessed the wardrobe of the first wife, carefully pre- 
served by his sister, even to the wonderful grey 


56 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

watered-poplin which had been her wedding-dress. 
These he had taken out, shaken free of cayenne, cam- 
phor, and lavender, and sent upon the back of Parpon, 
the dwarf, to the house where Julie lodged (she was an 
orphan), following himself with a statement on brown 
paper, showing the extent of his wealth, and a parcel of 
very fine flour from the new stones in his mill. All 
was spread out, and then he made a speech, describing 
his virtues, and condoning his one offence of age by 
assuring her that every tooth in his head was sound. 
This was merely the concession of politeness, for he 
thought his offer handsome. 

Julie slyly eyed the wardrobe and as slyly smiled, and 
then, imitating Farette’s manner — though Farette 
could not see it, and Parpon spluttered with laughter — 
said : 

“ M’sieu’, you are a great man. The grey poplin is 
noble, also the flour, and the writing on the brown 
paper. M’sieu’ you go to Mass, and all your teeth 
are sound; you have a dog-churn, also three feather- 
beds, and five rag carpets ; you have sat on the grand 
jury. M’sieu’, I have a dot; I accept you. M’sieu’, I 
will keep the brown paper, and the grey poplin, and the 
flour.” Then with a grave elaborate bow, “ M’sieu’ ! ” 

That was the beginning and end of the courtship. 
For though Farette came every Sunday evening and 
smoked by the fire, and looked at Julie as she arranged 
the details of her dowry, he only chuckled, and now 
and again struck his thigh and said : 

“ Mon Dieu, the ankle, the eye, the good child, Julie, 
there ! ” 

Then he would fall to thinking and chuckling again. 
One day he asked her to make him some potato-cakes 
of the flour he had given her. Her answer was a 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE MILLER 57 


catastrophe. She could not cook ; she was even igno- 
rant of buttermilk pudding. He went away over- 
whelmed, but came back some days afterwards and 
made another speech. He had laid his plans before 
Medallion, who approved of them. He prefaced the 
speech by placing the blank marriage certificate on the 
table. Then he said that his first wife was such a cook 
that when she died he paid for an extra Mass and 
twelve very fine candles. He called upon Parpon to 
endorse his words, and Parpon nodded to all he said, 
but, catching Julie’s eye, went off into gurgles of 
laughter, which he pretended were tears, by smother- 
ing his face in his capote. “ Ma’m’selle,” said the 
miller, I have thought. Some men go to the Avocat 
or the Cure with great things ; but I have been a pil- 
grimage, I have sat on the grand jury. There, 
Ma’m’selle ! His chest swelled, he blew out his 
cheeks, he pulled Parpon’s ear as Napoleon pulled 
Murat’s. “ Ma’m’selle, allons! Babette, the sister of 
my first wife — ah ! she is a great cook also — well, she 
was pouring into my plate the soup — there is nothing 
like pea-soup with a fine lump of pork, and thick mo- 
lasses for the buckwheat cakes. Ma’m’selle, allons! 
Just then I thought. It is very good: you shall see; 
you shall learn how to cook. Babette will teach you. 
Babette said many things. I got mad and spilt the 
soup. Ma’m’selle — eh, holy ! what a turn has your 
waist ! ” 

At length he made it clear to her what his plans 
were, and to each and all she consented ; but when he 
had gone she sat and laughed till she cried, and for the 
hundredth time took out the brown paper and studied 
the list of Farette’s worldly possessions. 

The wedding-day came. Julie performed her last real 


58 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


act of renunciation when, in spite of the protests of her 
friends, she wore the grey watered-poplin, made mod- 
ern by her own hands. The wedding-day was the an- 
niversary of Farette’s first marriage, and the Cure 
faltered in the exhortation when he saw that Farette 
was dressed in complete mourning, even to the crape 
hat-streamers, as he said, out of respect for the memory 
of his first wife, and as a kind of tribute to his second. 
At the wedding-breakfast, where Medallion and 
Parpon were in high glee, Farette announced that he 
would take the honeymoon himself, and leave his wife 
to learn cooking from old Babette. 

So he went away alone cheerfully, with hymeneal rice 
falling in showers on his mourning garments ; and his 
new wife was as cheerful as he, and threw rice also. 

She learned how to cook, and in time Farette learned 
that he had his one true inspiration when he wore 
mourning at his second marriage. 


MATHURIN 


T he tale was told to me in the little valley beneath 
Dalgrothe Mountain one September morning. 
Far and near one could see the swinging of the flail, 
and the laughter of a ripe summer was upon the land. 
There was a little Calvary down by the river-side, 
where the flax-beaters used to say their prayers in the 
intervals of their work; and it was just at the foot of 
this that Angele Rouvier, having finished her prayer, 
put her rosary in her pocket, wiped her eyes with the 
hem of her petticoat, and said to me : 

“ Ah, dat poor Mathurin ! I wipe my tears for 
him ! ” she said to me again. 

“ Tell me all about him, won’t you, Madame Angele? 
I want to hear you tell it,” I added hastily, for I saw 
that she would despise me if I showed ignorance of 
Mathurin’s story. Her sympathy with Mathurin’s 
memory was real, but her pleasure at the compliment 
I paid her was also real. 

“ Ah ! It was ver’ long time ago — yes. My gran’- 
mudder she remember dat Mathurin ver’ well. He is 
not ver’ big man. He has a face — oh! not ver’ 
handsome, not so more handsome as yours — non! His 
clothes, dey hang on him all loose; his hair, it is all 
some grey, and it blow about him head. He is clean 
to de face, no beard — no, nosing like dat. But his eye ; 
la ! M’sieu’, his eye 1 It is like a coal which you blow 
in your hand, whew!— all bright. My gran’mudder. 


6o BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


she say, you can light your pipe with de eyes 

of dat Mathurin ! She know. She say dat M’sieu’ 
Mathurin’s eyes dey shine in de dark. My gran’- 
fadder he say he not need any lights on his carriole 
when Mathurin ride with him in de dark. 

“ Ah, sure ! it is ver’ true what I tell you all de time. 
If you cut off Mathurin at de chin, all de way up, 
you will say de top of him it is a priest. All de way 
down from his neck, oh, he is just no better as yoursek 
or my Jean — non! He is a ver’ good man. Only one 
bad ting he do. Dat is why I pray for him ; dat is why 
everybody pray for him — only one bad ting. Sapristi! 
If I have only one ting to say God-have-mercy for, I 
tink dat ver’ good, I do my penance happy. Well, dat 
Mathurin him use to teach de school. De Cure he 
ver’ fond of him. All de leetla children, boys and 
girls, dey all say, ‘ Cest bon Mathurin! ’ He is not 
ver’ cross — non! He have no wife, no child; jes live 
by himself all alone. But he is ver’ good friends with 
everybody in Pontiac. When he go ’long de street, 
everybody say, ‘ Ah, dere go de good Mathurin ! ” 
He laugh, he tell story, he smoke leetla tabac, he take 
leetla white wine behin’ de door; dat is nosing — non! 

“ He have in de parish five, ten, twenty children all 
call Mathurin ; he is godfadder with dem — yes. So 
he go about with plenty of sugar and sticks of candy 
in his pocket. He never forget once de age of every 
leetla child dat call him godfadder. He have a brain 
dat work like a clock. My gran’fadder he say dat 
Mathurin have a machine in his head. It make de 
words, make de thoughts, make de fine speech like 
de Cure, make de gran’ poetry — oh, yes ! 

“ When de King of Englan’ go to sit on de throne, 
Mathurin write ver’ nice verse to him. And by-and-by 


MATHURIN 


6i 


dere come to Alathurin a letter — voila, dat is a letter 1 
It have one, two, three, twenty seals ; and de King he 
say to Mathurin, ‘ Merci mille fois, M’sieu\ You are 
ver’ polite. I tank you. I will keep your verses to 
tell me dat my French subjects are all loyal like M* 
Mathurin.’ Dat is ver’ nice, but Mathurin is not 
proud — non! He write six verses for my gran’mudder 
— hein! Dat is someting. He write two verses for de 
King of Englan’ and he write six verses for my gran’- 
mudder — you see ! He go on so, dis week, dat week, 
dis year, dat year, all de time. 

“ Well, by-and-by dere is trouble in Pontiac. It is 
ver’ great trouble. You see dere is a fight ’gainst de 
King of Englan’, and dat is too bad. It is not his 
fault ; he is ver’ nice man ; it is de bad men who make 
de laws for de King in Quebec. Well, one day all over 
de country everybody take him gun, and de leetla 
bullets, and say, I will fight de soldier of de King of 
Englan’ — like dat ! Ver’ well, dere was twenty men in 
Pontiac, ver’ nice men — you will find de names cut in 
a stone on de church ; and den, tree times as big, you 
will find Mathurin’s name. Ah, dat is de ting ! You 
see, dat rebellion you English call it, we call it de 
War of de Patriot — de first War of de Patriot, not de 
second — well, call it what you like, quelle difference? 
The King of Englan’ smash him Patriot War all to 
pieces. Den dere is ten men of de twenty come back 
to Pontiac ver’ sorry. Dey are not happy, nobody are 
happy ! All de wives, dey cry ; all de children, dey are 
afraid ! Some people say. What fools you are ; others 
say. You are no good; but everybody in him heart is 
ver’ sorry all de time. 

“ Ver’ well, by-and-by dere come to Pontiac what 
you call a colonel with a dozen men — what for, you 


62 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


tink? To try de patriots. He will stan’ dem against 
de wall and shoot dem to death — kill dem dead ! 
When dey come, de Cure he is not in Pontiac — non, not 
dat day ; he is gone to anudder village. The English 
soldier he has de ten men drew up before de church. 
All de children and all de wives dey cry and cry, and 
dey feel so bad. Certainlee, it is a pity. But de 
English soldier he say he will march dem off to Que- 
bec, and everybody know dat is de end of de patriots. 

“ All at once de colonel’s horse it grow ver’ wild, 
it rise up high and dance on him hind feet, and — 
voila! he topple him over backwards, and de horse 
fall on de colonel and smaish him — smaish him till he 
go to die. Ver’ well; de colonel, what does he do? 
Dey lay him on de steps of de church. Den he say, 

^ Bring me a priest, quick, for I go to die ! ’ Nobody 
answer. De colonel he say, ‘ I have a hundred sins 
all on my mind ; dey are on my heart like a hill. Bring 
to me de priest ! ’ — he groan like dat. Nobody speak 
at first ; den somebody say de priest is not here. ‘ Find 
me a priest,’ say de colonel ; ‘ find me a priest.’ For 
he tink de priest will not come, becos he go to kill de 
patriots. ' Bring me a priest,’ he say again, ' and all 
de ten shall go free ! ’ He say it over and over. He 
is smaish to pieces, but his head it is all right. All at 
once de doors of de church open behin’ him — what 
you tink ? Everybody’s heart it stan’ still, for dere is 
Mathurin dress as de priest, with a leetla boy to swing 
de censer. Everybody say to himself, What is dis? 
Mathurin is dress as de priest — ah ! dat is a sin. It is 
what you call blaspeme. 

“ The English soldier he look up at Mathurin and 
say, ' Ah, a priest at last ! ah, M’sieu’ le Cure, comfort 
me!’ 


MATHURIN 


63 


“ Mathurin look down on him and say, ‘ M’sieu’, it 
is for you to confess your sins, and to have de office 
of de Church. But first, as you have promise just now, 
you must give up dese poor men, who have fight for 
what dey tink is right. You will let dem go free dis 
moment ! ’ 

Yes, yes,’ say de English colonel; ‘ dey shall go 
free. Only give me de help of de Church at my last ! ’ 

“ Mathurin turn to de other soldiers and say, ‘ Un- 
loose de men.’ 

“ De colonel nod his head and say, / Unloose de 
men.’ Den de men are unloose, and dey all go away, 
for Mathurin tell dem to go quick. 

“ Everybody is ver’ ’fraid becos’ of what Mathurin 
do. Mathurin he say to de soldiers, ‘ Lift him up and 
bring him in de church.’ Dey bring him up to de 
steps of de altar. Mathurin look at de man for a while, 
and it seem as if he cannot speak to him ; but de colonel 
say, ‘ I have give you my word. Give me comfort of 
de Church before I die.’ He is in ver’ great pain, so 
Mathurin he turn roun’ to everybody dat stan’ by, and 
tell dem to say de prayers for de sick. Everybody get 
him down on his knees and say de prayer. Everybody 
say: ^ Lord have mercy. Spare him, O Lord; de- 
liver him, O Lord, from Thy wrath / ’ And Mathurin 
he pray all de same as a priest, ver’ soft and gentle. 
He pray on and on, and de face of de English soldier 
it get ver’ quiet and still, and de tear drop down his 
cheek. And just as Mathurin say at de last his sins 
dey are forgive, he die. Den Mathurin, as he go 
away to take off his robes, he say to himself, ‘ Miserere 
met Deus ! miserere met Deus ! ’ 

So dat is de ting dat Mathurin do to save de 
patriots from de bullets. Ver’ well, de men dey go 


64 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

free, and when de Governor at Quebec he hear de 
truth, he say it is all right. Also de English soldier 
die in peace and happy, becos’ he tink his sins are for- 
give. But den — dere is Mathurin and his sin to pre- 
tend he is a priest ! The Cure he come back, and dere 
is a great trouble. 

“ Mathurin he is ver’ quiet and still. Nobody come 
near him in him house ; nobody go near to de school. 
But he sit alone all day in de school, and he work 
on de blackboar’ and he write on de slate; but dere 
is no child come, becos’ de Cure has forbid any one to 
speak to Mathurin. Not till de next Sunday, den de 
Cure send word for Mathurin to come to de church. 
Mathurin come to de steps of de altar ; den de Cure say 
to him : 

“ ' Mathurin, you have sin a great sin. If it was two 
hundred years ago you would be put to death for dat.’ 

“ Mathurin he say very soft, ‘ Dat is no matter, I 
am ready to die now. I did it to save de fadders of de 
children and de husbands of de wives. I did it to 
make a poor sinner happy as he go from de world. 
De sin is mine ! ’ 

“ Den de Cure he say, ‘ De men are free, dat is 
good; de wives have dere husbands and de children 
dere fathers. Also de man who confess his sins — de 
English soldier — to whom you say de words of a priest 
of God, he is forgive. De Spirit of God it was upon 
him when he die, becos’ you speak in de name of de 
Church. But for you, blasphemer, who take upon you 
de holy ting, you shall suffer ! For penance, all your 
life you shall teach a child no more ! ’ 

“ Ah ! M’sieu’ le Cure he know dat is de greatest 
penance for de poor Mathurin! Den he set him 
other tings to do ; and every month for a whole year 


MATHURIN 


65 


Mathurin come on his knees all de way to de church, 
but de Cure say, ‘ Not yet are you forgive.’ At de end 
of de year Mathurin he look so thin, so white, you can 
blow through him. Every day he go to him school 
and write on de blackboar’, and mark on de slate, and 
call de roll of de school. But dere is no answer, for 
dere is no child. But all de time de wives of de men 
dat he have save, and de children, dey pray for him. 
And by-and-by all de village pray for him, so sorry. 

“ It is so for two years ; and den dey say dat 
Mathurin he go to die. He cannot come on his knees 
to de church ; and de men whose life he save, dey come 
to de Cure and ask him to take de penance from 
Mathurin. De Cure say, ‘ Wait till nex’ Sunday.’ So 
nex’ Sunday Mathurin is carry to de church — he is 
too weak to walk on his knees. De Cure he stan’ at 
de altar, and he read a letter from de Pope, which say 
dat Mathurin his penance is over, and he is forgive; 
dat de Pope himself pray for Mathurin, to save his 
soul ! So. 

“ Mathurin all at once he stan’ up, and his face it 
smile and smile, and he stretch out his arms as if dey 
are on a cross, and he say, ‘ Lord, I am ready to go,’ 
and he fall down. But de Cure catch him as he fall, 
and Mathurin say, ' De children — let dem come to 
me dat I teach dem before I die ! ’ An’ all de children 
in de church dey come close to him, and he sit up and 
smile at dem, and he say : 

“ ‘ It is de class in ’rithmetic. How much is three 
times four ? ’ And dem all answer, ' Three times four 
is twelve.’ And he say, ' May de Twelve Apostles 
pray for me ! ’ Den he ask, ‘ Class in geography — 
how far is it roun’ de world?’ And dey answer, 
^ Twenty-four thousand miles.’ He say, ' Good ; it is 


66 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


not so far to God ! De school is over all de time/ he 
say, and dat is only everyting of poor Mathurin. He 
is dead. 

“ When de Cure lay him down, after he make de Sign 
upon him, he kiss his face and say : ‘ Mathurin, now 
you are a priest unto God ! ’ 

That was Angele Rouvier’s story of Mathurin, the 
Master of the School, for whom the women and the 
children pray in the parish of Pontiac, though the 
school has been dismissed these hundred years and 
more. 


THE STORY OF THE LIME-BURNER 


F or a man in whose life there had been tragedy he 
was cheerful. He had a habit of humming 
vague notes in the silence of conversation, as if to put 
you at your ease. His body and face were lean and 
arid, his eyes oblique and small, his hair straight and 
dry and straw-colored ; and it flew out crackling with 
electricity, to meet his cap as he put it on. He lived 
alone in a little hut near his lime-kiln by the river, with 
no near neighbours, and few companions save his four 
dogs; and these he fed sometimes at expense of his 
own stomach. He had just enough crude poetry in 
his nature to enjoy his surroundings. For he was well 
placed. Behind the lime-kiln rose knoll on knoll, and 
beyond these, the verdant hills, all converging to Dal- 
grothe mountain. In front of it was the river with its 
banks dropping forty feet, and below, the rapids, al- 
ways troubled and sportive. On the farther side of the 
river lay peaceful areas of meadow and corn land, and 
low-roofed, hovering farm-houses, with one larger 
than the rest, having a windmill and a flagstaff. This 
building was almost large enough for a manor, and in- 
deed it was said that it had been built for one just be- 
fore the conquest in 1759, but the war had destroyed 
the ambitious owner, and it had become a farm-house. 
Paradis always knew the time of the day by the way 
the light fell on the windmill. He had owned this 
farm once, he and his brother Fabian, and he had loved 


68 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

it as he loved Fabian, and he loved it now as he loved 
Fabian’s memory. In spite of all, they were cheerful 
memories, both of brother and house. 

At twenty-three they had become orphans, with two 
hundred acres of land, some cash, horses and cattle, 
and plenty of credit in the parish, or in the county, for 
that matter. Both were of hearty dispositions, but 
Fabian had a taste for liquor, and Henri for pretty 
faces and shapely ankles. Yet no one thought the 
worse of them for that, especially at first. An old 
servant kept house for them and cared for them in 
her honest way both physically and morally. She 
lectured them when at first there was little to lecture 
about. It is no wonder that when there came a vast 
deal to reprove, the bonne desisted altogether, over- 
whelmed by the weight of it. 

Henri got a shock the day before their father died 
when he saw Fabian lift the brandy used to mix with 
the milk of the dying man, and pouring out the third 
of a tumbler, drink it off, smacking his lips as he did 
so as though it were a cordial. That gave him a cue 
to his future and to Fabian’s. After their father died 
Fabian gave way to the vice. He drank in the taverns, 
he was at once the despair and the joy of the parish ; 
for, wild as he was, he had a gay temper, a humorous 
mind, a strong arm, and was the universal lover. The 
Cure, who did not, of course, know one-fourth of his 
wildness, had a warm spot for him in his heart. But 
there was a vicious strain in him somewhere, and it 
came out one day in a perilous fashion. 

There was in the hotel of the Louis Quinze an Eng- 
lish servant from the west called Nell Barra way. She 
had been in a hotel in Montreal, and it was there 
Fabian had seen her as she waited at table. She was 


THE STORY OF THE LIME-BURNER 69 

a splendid-looking creature, all life and energy, ^all, 
fair-haired, and with a charm above her kind. She 
was also an excellent servant, could do as much as any 
two women in any house, and was capable of more airy 
diablerie than any ten of her sex in Pontiac. When 
Fabian had said to her in Montreal that he would come 
to see her again, he told her where he lived. She came 
to see him instead, for she wrote to the landlord of the 
Louis Quinze, enclosed fine testimonials, and was at 
once engaged. Fabian was stunned when he entered 
the Louis Quinze and saw her waiting at table, alert, 
busy, good to see. She nodded at him with a quick 
smile as he stood bewildered just inside the door, then 
said in English : This way, monsieur.” 

As he sat down he said in English also, with a laugh 
and with snapping eyes : “ Good Lord, what brings 
you here, ladybird ? ” 

As she pushed a chair under him she almost hissed 
through his hair, “ You ! ” and then was gone away to 
fetch pea soup for six hungry men. 

The Louis Quinze did more business now in three 
months than it had done before in six. But it became 
known among a few in Pontiac that Nell was noto- 
rious. How it had crept up from Montreal no one 
guessed, and, when it did come, her name was very in- 
timately associated with Fabian’s. No one could say 
that she was not the most perfect of servants, and also 
no one could say that her life in Pontiac had not been 
exemplary. Yet wise people had made up their minds 
that she was determined to marry Fabian, and the 
wisest declared that she would do so in spite of every- 
thing — religion (she was a Protestant), character, race. 
She was clever, as the young Seigneur found, as the 
little Avocat was forced to admit, as the Cure allowed 


70 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

with a sigh, and she had no airs of badness at all and 
very little of usual coquetry. Fabian was enamoured, 
and it was clear that he intended to bring the woman 
to the manor one way or another. 

Henri admitted the fascination of the woman, felt it, 
despaired, went to Montreal, got proof of her career, 
came back, and made his final and only effort to turn 
his brother from the girl. 

He had waited an hour outside the hotel for his 
brother, and when Fabian got in, he drove on without 
a word. After a while, Fabian, who was in high spirits, 
said : 

Open your mouth, Henri. Come along, sleepy- 
head.’' 

Straightway he began to sing a rollicking song, and 
Henri joined in with him heartily, for the spirit of 
Fabian’s humour was contagious : 


“ There was a little man, 

The foolish Guilleri 
Carabi. 

He went unto the chase, 

Of partridges the chase. 

Carabi. 

Titi Carabi, 

Toto Carabo, 

You’re going to break your neck. 
My lovely Guilleri.” 


He was about to begin another verse when Henri 
stopped him, saying : 

You’re going to break your neck, Fabian.” 

What’s up, Henri ? ” was the reply. 

“ You’re drinking hard, and you don’t keep good 
company.” 


THE STORY OF THE LIME-BURNER 71 

Fabian laughed. “ Can’t get the company I want, 
so what I can get I have, Henri, my dear.” 

“ Don’t drink.” Henri laid his free hand on Fa- 
bian’s knee. 

“ Whiskey-wine is meat and drink to me — I was 
born on New Year’s Day, old coffin-face. Whiskey- 
wine day, they ought to call it. Holy ! the empty jars 
that day.” 

Henri sighed. “ That’s the drink, Fabian,” he said 
patiently. “ Give up the company. I’ll be better 
company for you than that girl, Fabian.” 

“ Girl ? What the devil do you mean ? ” 

She, Nell Barraway was the company I meant, 
Fabian.” 

“Nell Barra way — you mean her? Bosh! I’m 
going to marry her, Henri.” 

“ You mustn’t, Fabian,” said Henri, eagerly clutch- 
ing Fabian’s sleeve. 

“ But I must, my Henri. She’s the best-looking, 
wittiest girl I ever saw — splendid. Never lonely with 
her.” 

“ Looks and brains isn’t everything, Fabian.” 

“ Isn’t it, though! Isn’t it? You just try it.” 

“ Not without goodness.” Henri’s voice weakened. 

“ That’s bosh. Of course it is, Henri, my dear. If 
you love a woman, if she gets hold of you, gets into 
your blood, loves you so that the touch of her fingers 
sets your pulses flying, you don’t care a sou whether 
she is good or not.” 

“ You mean whether she was good or not? ” 

“ No, I don’t. I mean is good or not. For if she 
loves you she’ll travel straight for your sake. Pshaw ! 
You don’t know anything about it.” 

“ I know all about it.” 

3 * 


72 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

“ Know all about it! You’re in love — you? ” 

" Yes.” 

Fabian sat open-mouthed for a minute. “ Go- 
dam ! ” he said. It was his one English oath. 

“ Is she good company ? ” he asked after a minute. 

“ She’s the same as you keep — the very same.” 

“You mean Nell — Nell?” asked Fabian, in a dry, 
choking voice. 

“ Yes, Nell. From the first time I saw her. But I’d 
cut my hand off first. I’d think of you ; of our peo- 
ple that have been here for two hundred years ; 
of the rooms in the old house where mother used to 
be.” 

Fabian laughed nervously. “ Holy heaven, and 
you’ve got her in your blood, too I ” 

“ Yes, but I’d never marry her. Fabian, at Mon- 
treal I found out all about her. She was as bad ” 

“ That’s nothing to me, Henri,” said Fabian, “ but 
something else is. Here you are now. I’ll make a 
bargain.” His face showed pale in the moonlight. 
“ If you’ll drink with me, do as I do, go where I go, 
play the devil when I play it, and never squeal, never 
hang back. I’ll give her up. But I’ve got to have you, 
got to have you all the time, everywhere, hunting, 
drinking, or letting alone. You’ll see me out, for 
you’re stronger, had less of it. I’m for the little low 
house in the grass, bientdt. Stop the horses. 

Henri stopped them and they got out. They were 
just opposite the lime-kiln, and they had to go a few 
hundred yards before they came to the bridge to cross 
the river to their home. The light of the fire shone in 
their faces as Fabian handed the flask to Henri, and 
said: “Let’s drink to it, Henri. You half, and me 
half.” He was deadly pale. 


THE STORY OF THE LIME-BURNER 73 

Henri drank to the finger-mark set, and then Fabian 
lifted the flask to his lips. 

“ Good-bye, Nell,” he said. “ Here’s to the good 
times we’ve had ! ” He emptied the flask, and threw 
it over the bank into the burning lime, and Garotte, the 
old lime-burner, being half asleep, did not see or hear. 

The next day the two went on a long hunting ex- 
pedition, and the following month Nell Barraway left 
for Montreal. 

Henri kept to his compact, drink for drink, sport for 
sport. One year the crops were sold before they were 
reaped, horses and cattle went little by little, then came 
mortgage, and still Henri never wavered, never weak- 
ened, in spite of the Cure and all others. The brothers 
were always together, and never from first to last did 
Henri lose his temper, or openly lament that ruin was 
coming surely on them. What money Fabian wanted 
he got. The Cure’s admonitions availed nothing, for 
Fabian would go his gait. The end came on the very 
spot where the compact had been made, for, passing 
the lime-kiln one dark night, as the two rode home to- 
gether, Fabian’s horse shied, the bank of the river gave 
way, and with a startled “ Ah, Henri! ” the profligate 
and his horse were gone into the river below. 

Next month the farm and all were sold, Henri Para- 
dis succeeded the old lime-burner at his post, drank no 
more ever, and lived his life in sight of the old home. 


THE WOODSMAN’S STORY OF THE GREAT 
WHITE CHIEF 


HE old woodsman shifted the knife with which he 



1 was mending his fishing-rod from one hand to 
the other, and looked at it musingly, before he replied 
to Medallion. ‘‘ Yes, m’sieu’, I knew the White Chief, 
as they called him : this was his — holding up the 
knife ; “ and this ” — taking a watch from his pocket. 
“ He gave them to me ; I was with him in the Circle 
on the great journey.” 

“ Tell us about him, then,” Medallion urged ; “ for 
there are many tales, and who knows which is the right 


one?” 


“ The right one is mine. Holy, he was to me like a 
father then ! I know more of the truth than any one.” 
He paused a moment, looking out on the river where 
the hot sun was playing with all its might, then took 
off his cap with deliberation, laid it beside him, and 
speaking as it were into the distance, began : 

“ He once was a trader of the Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany. Of his birth some said one thing, some another ; 
I know he was beaucoup gentil, and his heart, it was a 
lion’s ! Once, when there was trouble with the Chipp’- 
ways, he went alone to their camp, and say he will fight 
their strongest man, to stop the trouble. He twist the 
neck of the great fighting man of the tribe, so that it 
go with a snap, and that ends it, and he was made a 
chief, for, you see, in their hearts they all hated their 


THE WOODSMAN’S STORY 


75 


strong man. Well, one winter there come down to 
Fort o’ God two Esquimaux, and they said that three 
white men are wintering by the Coppermine River; 
they had travelled down from the frozen seas when 
their ship was lock in the ice, but can get no farther. 
They were sick with the evil skin, and starving. The 
White Chief say to me : ‘ Galloir, will you go to rescue 
them ? ’ I would have gone with him to the ends of 
the world — and this was near one end.” 

The old man laughed to himself, tossed his jet-black 
hair from his wrinkled face, and, after a moment, went 
on : “ There never was such a winter as that. The air 
was so still by times that you can hear the rustle of 
the stars and the shifting of the northern lights; but 
the cold at night caught you by the heart and clamp 
it — Mon Dieu! how it clamp! We crawl under the 
snow and lay in our bags of fur and wool, and the dogs 
hug close to us. We were sorry for the dogs ; and one 
died, and then another, and there is nothing so dreadful 
as to hear the dogs howl in the long night — it is like 
ghosts crying in an empty world. The circle of the 
sun get smaller and smaller, till he only travel along 
the high edge of the northwest. We got to the river 
at last, and found the camp. There is one man dead — 
only one ; but there were bones — ah, m’sieu’, you not 
guess what a thing it is to look upon the bones of men, 
and know that 1 ” 

Medallion put his hand on the old man’s arm. 

Wait a minute,” he said. Then he poured out coffee 
for both, and they drank before the rest was told. 

“ It’s a creepy story,” said Medallion, “ but go on.” 

Well, the White Chief look at the dead man as 
he sit there in the snow, with a book and a piece of 
paper beside him, and the pencil in the book. The face 


76 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

is bent forward to the knees. The White Chief pick 
up the book and pencil, and then kneel down and gaze 
up in the dead man’s face, all hard like stone and 
crusted with frost. I thought he would never stir 
again, he look so long. I think he was puzzled. Then 
he turn and say to me : ‘ So quiet, so awful, Galloir ! ’ 
and got up. Well, but it was cold then, and my head 
seemed big and running about like a ball of air. But I 
light a spirit-lamp, and make some coffee, and he open 
the dead man’s book — it is what they call a diary — and 
begin to read. All at once I hear a cry, and I see him 
drop the book on the ground, and go to the dead man 
and jerk his fist as if to strike him in the face. But he 
did not strike.” 

Galloir stopped, and lighted his pipe, and was so long 
silent that Medallion had to jog him into speaking. 
He puffed the smoke so that his face was in the cloud, 
and he said through it : “ No, he did not strike. He get 
to his feet, and spoke : ‘ God forgive her ! ’ like that ! 
and come and take up the book again, and read. He 
eat and drunk, and read the book again, and I know by 
his face that something more than cold was clamp his 
heart. 

“ ‘ Shall we bury him in the snow? ’ I say. ‘ No,’ 
he spoke, ‘ let him sit there till the judgment. This is 
a wonderful book, Galloir,’ he went on. ^ He was a 
brave man, but the rest ! — the rest ! ’ — then under his 
breath almost : ‘ She was so young — but a child.’ I 
not understand that. We start away soon, leaving the 
thing there : for four days, and then I see that the 
White Chief will never get back to Fort Pentecost; 
but he read the dead man’s book much. . . .” 

“ I cannot forget that one day. He lay looking at 
the world — nothing but the waves of snow, shining 


THE WOODSMAN’S STORY 


77 


blue and white, on and on. The sun lift an eye of 
blood in the north, winking like a devil as I try to drive 
Death away by calling in his ear. He wake all at 
once; but his eyes seem asleep. He tell me to take 
the book to a great man in Montreal — he give me the 
name. Then he take out his watch — it is stop — and 
this knife, and put them into my hands, and then he 
pat my shoulder. He motion to have the bag drawn 
over his head. I do it. . . . Of course that was 

the end ! ’’ 

But what about the book ? ” Medallion asked. 

That book ? It was strange. I took it to the man 
in Montreal — Tonnerre, what a fine house and good 
wine had he ! — and told him all. He whip out a scarf, 
and blow his nose loud, and say very angry : ^ So, she’s 
lost both now. What a scoundrel he was ! . . .” 

Which one did he mean? I not understand ever 
since.” 


UNCLE JIM 


H e was no uncle of mine, but it pleased me that he 
let me call him Uncle Jim. 

It seems only yesterday that, for the first time, on 
a farm “ over the border,” not far from Pontiac, I saw 
him standing by a log outside the wood-house door, 
splitting maple knots. He was all bent by years and 
hard work, with muscles of iron, hands gnarled and 
lumpy, but clinching like a vise ; grey head thrust for- 
ward on shoulders which had carried forkfuls of hay 
and grain, and leaned to the cradle and the scythe, and 
been heaped with cordwood till they were like hide 
and metal ; white straggling beard and red watery eyes, 
which, to me, were always hung with an intangible veil 
of mystery — though that, maybe, was my boyish fancy. 
Added to all this he was so very deaf that you had to 
speak clear and loud into his ear; and many people 
he could not hear at all, if their words were not sharp- 
cut, no matter how loud. A silent, withdrawn man he 
was, living close to Mother Earth, twin-brother of 
Labour, to whom Morning and Daytime were sound- 
ing-boards for his axe, scythe, saw, flail, and milking- 
pail, and Night a round hollow of darkness into which 
he crept, shutting the doors called Silence behind him, 
till the impish page of Toil came tapping again, and he 
stepped awkwardly into the working world once more. 
Winter and summer saw him putting the kettle on the 
fire a few minutes after four o’clock, in winter issuing 


UNCLE JIM 


79 


with lantern from the kitchen door to the stable and 
barn to feed the stock; in summer sniffing the grey 
dawn and looking out on his fields of rye and barley 
before he went to gather the cows for milking and take 
the horses to water. 

For forty years he and his worn-faced wife bowed 
themselves beneath the yoke, first to pay for the hun- 
dred-acre farm, and then to bring up and educate their 
seven children. Something noble in them gave them 
ambitions for their boys and girls which they had never 
had for themselves ; but when had gone the forty years, 
in which the little farm had twice been mortgaged to 
put the eldest son through college as a doctor, they 
faced the bitter fact that the farm had passed from 
them to Rodney, the second son, who had come at last 
to keep a hotel in a town fifty miles away. Generous- 
hearted people would think that these grown-up sons 
and daughters should have returned the old people’s 
long toil and care by buying up the farm and handing 
it back to them, their rightful refuge in the decline of 
life. But it was not so. They were tenants where 
they had been owners, dependents where they had been 
givers, slaves where once they were masters. The old 
mother toiled without a servant, the old man without 
a helper, save in harvest time. 

But the great blow came when Rodney married the 
designing milliner who flaunted her wares opposite his 
bar-room; and, somehow, from the date of that mar- 
riage, Rodney’s good fortune and the hotel declined. 
When he and his wife first visited the little farm after 
their marriage the old mother shrank away from the 
young woman’s painted face, and ever afterwards an 
added sadness showed in her bearing and in her pa- 
tient smile. But she took Rodney’s wife through the 


8o BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


house, showing her all there was to show, though that 
was not much. There was the little parlour with its 
hair-cloth chairs, rag carpet, centre table, and iron 
stove with black pipes, all gaily varnished. There was 
the parlour bedroom off it, with the one feather-bed of 
the house bountifully piled up with coarse home-made 
blankets, topped by a silk patchwork quilt, the artistic 
labour of the old wife’s evening hours while Uncle Jim 
peeled apples and strung them to dry from the rafters. 
There was a room, dining-room in summer, and 
kitchen dining-room in winter, as clean as aged hands 
could scrub and dust it, hung about with stray pictures 
from illustrated papers, and a good old clock in the 
corner ticking life, and youth, and hope away. There 
was the buttery off that, with its meagre china and 
crockery, its window looking out on the field of rye, 
the little orchard of winter apples, and the hedge of 
cranberry bushes. Upstairs were rooms with no ceil- 
ings, where, lying on a corn-husk bed, you reached up 
and touched the sloping roof, with windows at the end 
only, facing the buckwheat field, and looking down two 
miles toward the main road — for the farm was on a 
concession or side-road, dusty in summer, and in win- 
ter sometimes impassable for weeks together. It was 
not much of a home, as anyone with the mind’s eye can 
see, but four stalwart men and three fine women had 
been born, raised, and quartered there, until, with good 
clothes, and speaking decent English and tolerable 
French, and with money in their pockets, hardly got 
by the old people, one by one they issued forth into the 
world. 

The old mother showed Rodney’s wife what there 
was for eyes to see, not forgetting the three hives of 
bees on the south side, beneath the parlor window. 


UNCLE JIM 8i 

She showed it with a kind of pride, for it all seemed 
good to her, and every dish, and every chair, and every 
corner in the little house had to her a glory of its own, 
because of those who had come and gone — the first- 
lings of her flock, the roses of her little garden of love, 
blooming now in a rougher air than ranged over the 
little house on the hill. She had looked out upon the 
pine-woods to the east and the meadow-land to the 
north, the sweet valley between the rye-field and the 
orchard, and the good honest air that had blown there 
for forty years, bracing her heart and body for the 
battle of love and life, and she had said through all. 
Behold it is very good. 

But the pert milliner saw nothing of all this; she did 
not stand abashed in the sacred precincts of a home 
where seven times the Angel of Death had hovered 
over a birth-bed. She looked into the face which 
Time’s finger had anointed, and motherhood had 
etched with trouble, and said : 

“ ’Tisn’t much, is it? Only a clap-board house, and 
no ceilings upstairs, and rag carpets — pshaw! ” 

And when she came to wash her hands for dinner, 
she threw aside the unscented, common bar-soap, and, 
shrugging her narrow shoulders at the coarse towel, 
wiped her fingers on her cambric handkerchief. Any 
other kind of a woman, when she saw the old mother 
going about with her twisted wrist — a doctor’s bad 
work with a fracture — would have tucked up her dress, 
and tied on an apron, to help. But no, she sat and 
preened herself with the tissue-paper sort of pride of a 
vain milliner, or nervously shifted about, lifting up this 
and that, curiously supercilious, her tongue rattling 
on to her husband and to his mother in a shallow, fool- 
ish way. She couldn’t say, however, that anything 


82 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


was out of order or ill-kept about the place. The old 
woman’s rheumatic fingers made corners clean, and 
wood as white as snow, the stove was polished, the tins 
were bright, and her own dress, no matter what her 
work, neat as a girl’s, although the old graceful poise 
of the body had shifted out of drawing. 

But the real crisis came when Rodney, having stood 
at the wood-house door, and blown the dinner-horn as 
he used to do when a boy, the sound floating and cry- 
ing away across the rye-field, the old man came — for, 
strange to say, that was the one sound he could hear 
easily, though, as he said to himself, it seemed as small 
as a pin, coming from ever so far away. He came 
heavily up from the barn-yard, mopping his red face 
and forehead, and now and again raising his hand to 
shade his eyes, concerned to see the unknown visitors, 
whose horse and buggy were in the stable-yard. He 
and Rodney greeted outside warmly enough, but there 
was some trepidation too in Uncle Jim’s face — he felt 
trouble brewing ; and there is no trouble like that which 
comes between parent and child. Silent as he was, 
however, he had a large and cheerful heart, and nod- 
ding his head he laughed the deep, quaint laugh which 
Rodney himself of all his sons had — and he was fonder 
of Rodney than any. He washed his hands in the little 
basin outside the wood-house door, combed out his 
white beard, rubbed his red, watery eyes, tied a clean 
handkerchief round his neck, put on a rusty but clean 
old coat, and a minute afterwards was shaking hands 
for the first time with Rodney’s wife. He had lived 
much apart from his kind, but he had a mind that fast- 
ened upon a thought and worked it down until it was 
an axiom. He felt how shallow was this thin, flaunt- 
ing woman of flounces and cheap rouge; he saw her 


UNCLE JIM 


83 


sniff at the brown sugar — she had always had white at 
the hotel ; and he noted that she let Rodney’s mother 
clear away and wash the dinner things herself. He felt 
the little crack of doom before it came. 

It came about three o’clock. He did not return to 
the rye-field after dinner, but stayed and waited to hear 
what Rodney had to say. Rodney did not tell his little 
story well, for he foresaw trouble in the old home; 
but he had to face this and all coming dilemmas as best 
he might. With a kind of shame-facedness, yet with 
an attempt to carry the thing off lightly, he told Uncle 
Jim, while, inside, his wife told the old mother, that the 
business of the hotel had gone to pot (he did not say 
who was the cause of that) and they were selling out to 
his partner and coming to live on the farm. 

“ I’m tired anyway of the hotel job,” said Rodney. 
‘‘ Farming’s a better life. Don’t you think so, dad?” 

“ It’s better for me. Rod,” answered Uncle Jim, “ it’s 
better for me.” 

Rodney was a little uneasy. “ But won’t it be better 
for me? ” he asked. 

“ Mebbe,” was the slow answer, “ mebbe, mebbe so.” 

“ And then there’s mother, she’s getting too old for 
the work, ain’t she? ” 

“ She’s done it straight along,” answered the old 
man, “ straight along till now.” 

But Millie can help her and we’ll have a hired girl, 
eh?” 

“ I dunno, I dunno,” was the brooding answer; “ the 
place ain’t going to stand it.” 

“ Oh, we’ll get more out of it,” answered Rodney. 
“ I’ll stock it up. I’ll put more under barley. All the 
thing wants is working, dad. Put more in, get more 
out. Now ain’t that right ? ” 


84 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

The other was looking off towards the rye-field, 
where for forty years, up and down the hill-side, he had 
travelled with the cradle and the scythe, putting all 
there was in him into it, and he answered, blinking 
along the avenue of the past — 

“ Mebbe, mebbe ! ” 

Rodney fretted under the old man’s vague replies, 
and said, “ But darn it all, can’t you tell us what you 
think?” 

His father did not take his eyes off the rye-field. 
'H’m thinking,” he answered, in the same old-fashioned 
way, “ that I’ve been working here since you were 
born. Rod. I’ve blundered along somehow, just 
boggling my way through. I ain’t got anything more 
to say. The farm ain’t mine any more, but I’ll keep 
my scythe sharp and my axe ground just as I always 
did, and I’m for workin’ as I’ve always worked as long 
as I’m let to stay.” 

“ Good Lord, dad, don’t talk that way. Things 
ain’t going to be any different for you and mother 
than they are now. Only, of course ” He paused. 

The old man pieced out the sentence: Only, of 
course, there can’t be two women rulin’ one house. 
Rod, and you know it as well as I do.” 

Exactly how Rodney’s wife told the old mother of 
the great change Rodney never knew; but when he 
went back to the house the grey loiDk in his mother’s 
face told him more than her words ever told. Before 
they left that night the pink milliner had already 
planned the changes which were to celebrate her com- 
ing and her ruling. 

So Rodney and his wife came, all the old man prophe- 
sied in a few brief sentences to his wife proving true. 
There was no great struggle on the mother’s part; she 


UNCLE JIM 


85 

stepped aside from governing, and became as like a 
servant as could be. An insolent servant girl came, and 
she and Rodney’s wife started a little drama of incom- 
petency, which should end as the hotel-keeping ended. 
Wastefulness, cheap luxury, tawdry living, took the 
place of the old, frugal, simple life. But the mother 
went about with that unchanging sweetness of face, 
and a body withering about a fretted soul. She had 
no bitterness, only a miserable distress. But every 
slight that was put upon her, every change, every new- 
fangled idea, from the white sugar to the scented soap 
and the yellow buggy, rankled in the old man’s heart. 
He had resentment both for the old wife and himself, 
and he hated the pink milliner for the humiliation that 
she heaped upon them both. Rodney did not see one- 
fifth of it, and what he did see lost its force, because, 
strangely enough, he loved the gaudy wife who wore 
gloves on her bloodless hands as she did the house- 
work and spent numberless afternoons in trimming 
her own bonnets. Her peevishness grew apace as 
the newness of the experience wore off. Uncle Jim 
seldom spoke to her, as he seldom spoke to any- 
body, but she had an inkling of the rancour in his 
heart, and many a time she put blame upon his shoul- 
ders to her husband, when some unavoidable friction 
came. 

A year, two years, passed, which were as ten upon 
the shoulders of the old people, and then, in the dead 
of winter, an important thing happened. About the 
month of March Rodney’s first child was expected. 
At the end of January Rodney had to go away, expect- 
ing to return in less than a month. But, in the middle 
of February, the woman’s sacred trouble came before 
its time. And on that day there fell such a storm as 


86 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


had not been seen for many a year. The concession 
road was blocked before day had well set in ; no horse 
could go ten yards in it. The nearest doctor was 
miles away at Pontiac, and for any man to face the 
journey was to connive with death. The old mother 
came to Uncle Jim, and, as she looked out of a little 
unfrosted spot on the window at the blinding storm, 
told him that the pink milliner would die. There 
seemed no other end to it, for the chances were a hun- 
dred to one against the strongest man making a jour- 
ney for the doctor, and another hundred to one against 
the doctor’s coming. 

No one knows whether Uncle Jim could hear the 
cries from the torture-chamber, but, after standing for 
a time mumbling to himself, he wrapped himself in a 
heavy coat, tied a muffler about his face, and went out. 
If they missed him they must have thought him gone 
to the barn, or in the drive-shed sharpening his axe. 
But the day went on and the old mother forgot all the 
wrongs that she had suffered, and yearned over the 
trivial woman who was hurrying out into the Great 
Space. Her hours seemed numbered at noon, her 
moments measured as it came towards sundown, but 
with the passing of the sun the storm stopped, and a 
beautiful white peace fell on the world of snow, and 
suddenly out of that peace came six men ; and the first 
that opened the door was the doctor. After him came 
Uncle Jim supported between two others. 

Uncle Jim had made the terrible journey, falling at 
last in the streets of Pontiac with frozen hands and feet, 
not a dozen rods from the doctor’s door. They 
brought him to, he told his story, and, with the abating 
of the storm, the doctor and the villagers drove down 
to the concession road, and then made their way slowly 


UNCLE JIM 87 

up across the fields, carrying the old man with them, 
for he would not be left behind. 

An hour after the doctor entered the parlour bed- 
room the old mother came out to where the old man 
sat, bundled up beside the fire with bandaged hands 
and feet. 

“ She’s safe, Jim, and the child too,” she said softly. 

The old man twisted in his chair, and blinked into 
the fire. “ Dang my soul ! ” he said. 

The old woman stooped and kissed his grey tangled 
hair. She did not speak, and she did not ask him what 
he meant; but there and then they took up their lives 
again and lived them out. 


THE HOUSE WITH THE TALL PORCH 


N O one ever visited the House except the Little 
Chemist, the Avocat, and Medallion ; and Me- 
dallion, though merely an auctioneer, was the only 
person on terms of intimacy with its owner, the old 
Seigneur, who for many years had never stirred be- 
yond the limits of his little garden. At rare intervals 
he might be seen sitting in the large stone porch which 
gave overweighted dignity to the house, itself not very 
large. 

An air of mystery surrounded the place • in summer 
the grass was rank, the trees seemed huddled together 
in gloom about the houses, the vines appeared to ooze 
on the walls, and at one end, where the window-shut- 
ters were always closed and barred, a great willow 
drooped and shivered; in winter the stone walls 
showed naked and grim among the gaunt trees and 
furtive shrubs. 

None who ever saw the Seigneur could forget him — 
a tall figure with stooping shoulders; a pale, deeply 
lined, clean-shaven face; and a forehead painfully 
white, with blue veins showing; the eyes handsome, 
penetrative, brooding, and made indescribably sorrow- 
ful by the dark skin around them. There were those 
in Pontiac, such as the Cure, who remembered when 
the Seigneur was constantly to be seen in the village ; 
and then another person was with him always, a tall, 
handsome youth, his son. They were fond and proud 


THE HOUSE WITH THE TALL PORCH 89 

of each other, and were religious and good citizens in 
a high-bred, punctilious way. 

At that time the Seigneur was all health and stalwart 
strength. But one day a rumour went abroad that he 
had quarrelled with his son because of the wife of 
Farette the miller. No one outside knew if the thing 
was true, but Julie, the miller’s wife, seemed rather to 
plume herself that she had made a stir in her little 
world. Yet the curious habitants came to know that 
the young man had gone, and after a few years his 
having once lived there had become a mere mem- 
ory. But whenever the Little Chemist set foot inside 
the tall porch he remembered; the Avocat was kept 
in mind by papers which he was called upon to read and 
alter from time to time ; the Cure never forgot, because 
when the young man went he lost not one of his flock, 
but two; and Medallion, knowing something of the 
story, had wormed a deal of truth out of the miller’s 
wife. Medallion knew that the closed, barred rooms 
were the young man’s ; and he knew also that the old 
man was waiting, waiting, in a hope which he never 
even named to himself. 

One day the silent old housekeeper came rapping at 
Medallion’s door, and simply said to him, “ Come — the 
Seigneur ! ” 

Medallion went, and for hours sat beside the Sei- 
gneur’s chair, while the Little Chemist watched and 
sighed softly in a corner, now and again rising to feel 
the sick man’s pulse or to prepare a draught. The 
housekeeper hovered behind the high-backed chair, 
and when the Seigneur dropped his handkerchief — 
now, as always, of the exquisite fashion of a past cen- 
tury — she put it gently in his hand. 

Once when the Little Chemist touched his wrist, his 


go BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

dark eyes rested on him with inquiry, and he said : 
“ Soon?” 

It was useless trying to shirk the persistency of that 
look. “ Eight hours, perhaps, sir,” the Little Chemist 
answered, with painful shyness. 

The Seigneur seemed to draw himself up a little, 
and his hand grasped his handkerchief tightly for an 
instant ; then he said : “ Soon. Thank you.” 

After a little, his eyes turned to Medallion and he 
seemed about to speak, but still kept silent. His chin 
dropped on his breast, and for a time he was motion- 
less and shrunken ; but still there was a strange little 
curl of pride — or disdain — on his lips. At last he drew 
up his head, his shoulders came erect, heavily, to the 
carved back of the chair, where, strange to say, the 
Stations of the Cross were figured, and he said, in 
a cold, ironical voice : “ The Angel of Patience has 
lied ! ” 

The evening wore on, and there was no sound, save 
the ticking of the clock, the beat of rain upon the 
windows, and the deep breathing of the Seigneur. 
Presently he started, his eyes opened wide, and his 
whole body seemed to listen. 

“ I heard a voice,” he said. 

“ No one spoke, my master,” said the housekeeper. 

“ It was a voice without,” he said. 

“ Monsieur,” said the Little Chemist, “ it was the 
wind in the eaves.” 

His face was almost painfully eager and sensitively 
alert. “ Hush ! ” he said ; “ I hear a voice in the tall 
porch ! ” 

“ Sir,” said Medallion, laying a hand respectfully on 
his arm, “ it is nothing.” 

With a light on his face and a proud, trembling 


THE HOUSE WITH THE TALL PORCH 91 

energy, he got to his feet. “ It is the voice of my son,” 
he said. “ Go — go, and bring him in.” 

No one moved. But he was not to be disobeyed. 
His ears had been growing keener as he neared the 
subtle atmosphere of that Brink where man strips him- 
self to the soul for a lonely voyaging, and he waved the 
woman to the door. 

“ Wait,” he said, as her hand fluttered at the handle. 
“ Take him to another room. Prepare a supper such 
as we used to have. When it is ready I will come. 
But, listen, and obey. Tell him not that I have but 
four hours of life. Go, good woman, and bring him 
in.” 

It was as he said. They found the son weak and 
fainting, fallen within the porch — a worn, bearded 
man, returned from failure and suffering and the husks 
of evil. They clothed him and cared for him, and 
strengthened him with wine, while the woman wept 
over him, and at last set him at the loaded, well-lighted 
table. Then the Seigneur came in, leaning his arm very 
lightly on that of Medallion with a kind of kingly air ; 
and, greeting his son before them all, as if they had 
parted yesterday, sat down. For an hour they sat 
there, and the Seigneur talked gaily with a colour to 
his face, and his great eyes glowing. At last he rose, 
lifted his glass, and said : “ The Angel of Patience is 
wise. I drink to my son ! ” 

He was about to say something more, but a sudden 
whiteness passed over his face. He drank off the wine, 
and as he put the glass down shivered, and fell back in 
his chair. 

“ Two hours short. Chemist ! ” he said, and smiled, 
and was Still. 


PARPON THE DWARF 


I 

P ARPON perched in a room at the top of the mill. 

He could see every house in the village, and he 
knew people a long distance off. He was a merry 
dwarf, and, in his way, had good times in the world. 
He turned the misery of the world into a game, and 
grinned at it from his high little eyrie with the dormer 
window. He had lived with Farette, the miller, for 
some years, serving him with a kind of humble in- 
solence. 

It was not a joyful day for Farette when he married 
Julie. She led him a pretty travel. He had started as 
her master; he ended by being her slave and victim. 
She was a wilful wife. She had made the Seigneur de 
la Riviere, of the House with the Tall Porch, to quarrel 
with his son Armand, so that Armand disappeared 
from Pontiac for years. 

When that happened she had already stopped con- 
fessing to the good Cure ; so it may be guessed there 
were things she did not care to tell, and for which she 
had no repentance. But Parpon knew, and Medallion 
the auctioneer guessed ; and the Little Chemist’s wife 
hoped that it was not so. When Julie looked at Par- 
pon, as he perched on a chest of drawers, with his head 
cocked and his eyes blinking, she knew that he read 
the truth. But she did not know all that was in his 


PARPON THE DWARF 


93 


head; so she said sharp things to him, as she did to 
everybody, for she had a very poor opinion of the 
world, and thought all as flippant as herself. She took 
nothing seriously ; she was too vain. Except that she 
was sorry Armand was gone, she rather plumed herself 
on having separated the Seigneur and his son — it was 
something to have been the pivot in a tragedy. There 
came others to the village, as, for instance, a series of 
clerks to the Avocat; but she would not decline from 
Armand upon them. She merely made them miser- 
able. 

But she did not grow prettier as time went on. 
Even Annette, the sad wife of the drunken Benoit, 
kept her fine looks ; but then, Annette’s life was a thing 
for a book, and she had a beautiful child. You cannot 
keep this from the face of a woman. Nor can you 
keep the other: when the heart rusts the rust 
shows. 

After a good many years, Armand de la Riviere came 
back in time to see his father die. Then Julie picked 
out her smartest ribbons, capered at the mirror, and 
dusted her face with oatmeal, because she thought that 
he would ask her to meet him at the Bois Noir, as he 
had done long ago. The days passed, and he did not 
come. When she saw Armand at the funeral — a tall 
man with a dark beard and a grave face, not like the 
Armand she had known, he seemed a great distance 
from her, though she could almost have touched him 
once as he turned from the grave. She would have 
liked to throw herself into his arms, and cry before 
them all, “ Mon Armand ! ” and go away with him to 
the House with the Tall Porch. She did not care 
about Farette, the mumbling old man who hungered 
for money, having ceased to hunger for anything else 


94 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


— even for Julie, who laughed and shut her door in 
his face, and cowed him. 

After the funeral Julie had a strange feeling. She 
had not much brains, but she had some shrewdness, 
and she felt her romance askew. She stood before the 
mirror, rubbing her face with oatmeal and frowning 
hard. Presently a voice behind her said, “ Madame 
Julie, shall I bring another bag of meal? 

She turned quickly, and saw Parpon on a table in 
the corner, his legs drawn up to his chin, his black 
eyes twinkling. 

“ Idiot ! she cried, and threw the meal at him. He 
had a very long, quick arm. He caught the basin as 
it came, but the meal covered him. He blew it from 
his beard, laughing softly, and twirled the basin on his 
finger-point. 

'' Like that, there will need two bags ! ’’ he said. 

“ Imbecile ! ’’ she cried, standing angry in the centre 
of the room. 

“ Ho, ho ! what a big word ! See what it is to have 
the tongue of fashion ! ” 

She looked helplessly round the room. 

^Hwill km you!” 

“ Let us die together,” answered Parpon ; ** we are 
both sad.” 

She snatched the poker from the fire, and ran at him. 
He caught her wrists with his great hands, big enough 
for tall Medallion, and held her. 

“ I said ‘ together,’ ” he chuckled ; '' not one before 
the other. We might jump into the flume at the mill, 
or go over the dam at the Bois Noir; or, there is 
Farette’s musket which he is cleaning — gracious ! but 
it will kick when it fires, it is so old I ” 

She sank to the floor. “ Why does he clean the 


PARPON THE DWARF 


95 


musket ? ” she asked ; fear, and something wicked too, 
in her eye. Pier fingers ran forgetfully through the 
hair on her forehead, pushing it back, and the marks 
of small-pox showed. The contrast with her smooth 
cheeks gave her a weird look. Parpon got quickly on 
the table again and sat like a Turk, with a furtive eye 
on her. 

“ Who can tell ? ” he said at last. “ That musket 
has not been fired for years. It would not kill a bird ; 
the shot would scatter : but it might kill a man ; a man 
is bigger.” 

“ Kill a man ! ” She showed her white teeth with 
a savage little smile. 

“ Of course it is all guess. I asked Farette what he 
would shoot, and he said, ‘ Nothing good to eat.’ I 
said I would eat what he killed. Then he got pretty 
mad, and said I couldn’t eat my own head. Holy ! 
that was funny for Farette. Then I told him there 
was no good going to the Bois Noir, for there would 
be nothing to shoot. Well, did I speak true, Madame 
Julie?” 

She was conscious of something new in Parpon. 
She could not define it. Presently she got to her 
feet and said : “ I don’t believe you — you’re a 
monkey ! ” 

“ A monkey can climb a tree quick ; a man has to 
take the shot as it comes.” He stretched up his power- 
ful arms, with a swift motion as of climbing, laughed, 
and added : “ Madame Julie, Farette has poor eyes, he 
could not see a hole in a ladder. But he has a kink 
in his head about the Bois Noir. People have 
talked ” 

'‘Pshaw!” Julie said, crumpling her apron and 
throwing it out ; “ he is a child and a coward. He 


4 


96 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

should not play with a gun; it might go off and hit 
him.’" 

Parpon hopped down and trotted to the door. Then 
he turned and said, with a sly gurgle : “ Farette keeps 
at that gun. What is the good? There will be no- 
body at the Bois Noir any more. I will go and tell 
him.” 

She rushed at him with fury, but seeing Annette 
Benoit in the road, she stood still and beat her foot 
angrily on the doorstep. She was ripe for a quarrel, 
and she would say something hateful to Annette ; for 
she never forgot that Farette had asked Annette to be 
his wife before herself was considered. She smoothed 
out her wrinkled apron, and waited. 

“ Good day, Annette,” she said loftily. 

“ Good day Julie,” was the quiet reply. 

“ Will you come in ? ” 

I am going to the mill for flax-seed. Benoit has 
rheumatism.” 

“ Poor Benoit ! ” said Julie, with a meaning toss of 
her head. 

“ Poor Benoit ! ” responded Annette gently. Her 
voice was always sweet. One would never have known 
that Benoit was a drunken idler. 

“ Come in. I will give you the meal from my own. 
Then it will cost you nothing,” said Julie, with an air. 

“ Thank you, Julie, but I would rather pay.” 

“ I do not sell my meal,” answered Julie. “ What’s 
a few pounds of meal to the wife of Farette ? I will get 
it for you. Come in, Annette.” 

She turned towards the door, then stopped all at 
once. There was the oatmeal which she had thrown 
at Parpon, the basin, and the poker. She wished she 
had not asked Annette in. But in some things she had 


PARPON THE DWARF 


97 


a quick wit, and she hurried to say : “ It was that 

yellow cat of Parpon’s. It spilt the meal, and I went 
at it with the poker.” 

Perhaps Annette believed her. She did not think 
about it one way or the other ; her mind was with the 
sick Benoit. She nodded and said nothing, hoping 
that the flax-seed would be got at once. But when 
she saw that Julie expected an answer, she said, “ Ce- 
cilia, my little girl, has a black cat — so handsome. It 
came from the house of the poor Seigneur de la Riviere 
a year ago. We took it back, but it would not stay.” 

Annette spoke simply and frankly, but her words 
cut like a knife. 

Julie responded, with a click of malice : “ Look out 
that the black cat doesn’t kill the dear Cecilia.” 

Annette started, but she did not believe that cats 
sucked the life from children’s lungs, and she replied 
calmly : “ I am not afraid ; the good God keeps my 
child.” She then got up and came to Julie, and said : 
“ It is a pity, Julie, that you have not a child. A child 
makes all right,” 

Julie was wild to say a fierce thing, for it seemed 
that Annette was setting off Benoit against Farette; 
but the next moment she grew hot, her eyes smarted, 
and there was a hint of trouble at her throat. She had 
lived very fast in the last few hours, and it was telling 
on her. She could not rule herself — she could not play 
a part so well as she wished. She had not felt before 
the thing that gave a new pulse to her body and a joy- 
ful pain at her breasts. Her eyes got blurred so that 
so that she could not see Annette, and, without a word, 
she hurried to get the meal. She was silent when she 
came back. She put the meal into Annette’s hands. 
She felt that she would like to talk of Armand. She 


98 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

knew now there was no evil thought in Annette. She 
did not like her more for that, but she felt she must 
talk, and Annette was safe. So she took her arm. 
“ Sit down, Annette,” she said. “ You come so sel- 
dom.” 

“ But there is Benoit, and the child ” 

“ The child has the black cat from the House ! ” 
There was again a sly ring to Julie’s voice, and she 
almost pressed Annette into a chair. 

“ W ell, it must only be a minute.” 

“ Were you at the funeral to-day? ” Julie began. 

“ No; I was nursing Benoit. But the poor Seign- 
eur! They say he died without confession. No one 
was there except M’sieu’ Medallion, the Little Chemist, 
old Sylvie, and M’sieu’ Armand. But, of course, you 
have heard everything.” 

“ Is that all you know? ” queried Julie. 

“ Not much more. I go out little, and no one comes 
to me except the Little Chemist’s wife — she is a good 
woman.” 

“ What did she say?” 

“ Only something of the night the Seigneur died. 
He was sitting in his chair, not afraid, but very sad, we 
can guess. By-and-by he raised his head quickly. ‘ I 
hear a voice in the Tall Porch,’ he said. They thought 
he was dreaming. But he said other things, and cried 
again that he heard his son’s voice in the Porch. They 
went and found M’sieu’ Armand. Then a great supper 
was got ready, and he sat very grand at the head of 
the table, but died quickly, when making a grand 
speech. It was strange he was so happy, for he did 
not confess — he hadn’t absolution ! ” 

This was more than Julie had heard. She showed 
excitement. 


PARPON THE DWARF 


99 

“ The Seigneur and M’sieu’ Armand were good 
friends when he died ? ” she asked. 

“ Quite.” 

All at once Annette remembered the old talk about 
Armand and Julie. She was confused. She wished 
she could get up and run away ; but haste would look 
strange. 

“You were at the funeral?” she added after a 
minute. 

“ Everybody was there.” 

“ I suppose M’sieu’ Armand looks very fine and 
strange after his long travel,” said Annette shyly, rising 
to go. 

“ He was always the grandest gentleman in the 
province,” answered Julie, in her old vain manner. 
“ You should have seen the women look at him to-day ! 
But they are nothing to him — he is not easy to 
please ! ” 

“ Good day,” said Annette, shocked and sad, moving 
from the door. Suddenly she turned, and laid a hand 
on Julie’s arm. “ Come and see my sweet Cecilia,” 
she said. “ She is gay ; she will amuse you.” 

She was thinking again what a pity it was that Julie 
had no child. 

“To see Cecilia and the black cat? Very well — 
some day.” 

You could not have told what she meant. But, as 
Annette turned away again, she glanced at the mill; 
and there, high up in the dormer window, sat Parpon, 
his yellow cat on his shoulder, grinning down at her. 

She wheeled and went into the house. 


Lorc» 


100 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


II 

Parpon sat in the dormer window for a long time, 
the cat purring against his head, and not seeming the 
least afraid of falling, though its master was well out 
on the window-ledge. He kept mumbling to himself : 

“ Ho ! ho ! Farette is below there with the gun, rub- 
bing and rubbing at the rust ! Holy Mother, how it 
will kick ! But he will only meddle. If she set her 
eye at him and come up bold and said, ‘ Farette, go 
and have your whiskey-wine, and then to bed ! ’ he 
would sneak away. But he has heard something. 
Some fool, perhaps that Benoit — no, he is sick, — per- 
haps the herb-woman has been talking, and he thinks 
he will make a fuss. But it will be nothing. And 
M’sieu’ Armand, will he look at her ! ” He chuckled 
at the cat, which set its head back and hissed in reply. 
Then he sang something to himself. 

Parpon was a poor little dwarf with a big head, 
but he had one thing which made up for all, though 
no one knew it — or, at least, he thought so. The Cure 
himself did not know. He had a beautiful voice. 
Even in speaking it was pleasant to hear, though he 
roughened it in a way. It pleased him that he had 
something of which the finest man or woman would 
be glad. He had said to himself many times that even 
Armand de la Riviere would envy him. 

Sometimes Parpon went away off into the Bois Noir, 
and, perched there in a tree, sang away — a man, 
shaped something like an animal, with a voice like a 
muffled silver bell. 

Some of his songs he had made himself : wild things, 
broken thoughts, not altogether human ; the language 


PARPON THE DWARF 


lOI 


of a world between man and the spirits. But it was all 
pleasant to hear, even when, at times, there ran a weird, 
dark thread through the woof. No one in the valley 
had ever heard the thing he sang softly as he sat look- 
ing down at Julie : — 


“ The little white smoke blows there, blows here, 

The little blue wolf comes down— 

C'esi Ih ! 

And the hill-dwarf laughs in the young wife’s ear. 

When the devil comes back to town — 

Cest Ih ! ” 

It was crooned quietly, but it was distinct and melo- 
dious, and the cat purred an accompaniment, its head 
thrust into his thick black hair. From where Parpon 
sat he could s6e the House with the Tall Porch, and, 
as he sang, his eyes ran from the miller’s doorway to it. 

Off in the grounds of the dead Seigneur’s manor he 
could see a man push the pebbles with his foot, or 
twist the branch of a shrub thoughtfully as he walked. 
At last another man entered the garden. The two 
greeted warmly, and passed up and down together. 


HI 

“ My good friend,” said the Cure, “ it is too late to 
mourn for those lost years. Nothing can give them 
back. As Parpon the dwarf said — you remember 
him, a wise little man, that Parpon — as he said one 
day, ‘ For everything you lose you get something, if 
only how to laugh at yourself ! ’ ” 

Armand nodded thoughtfully, and answered, You 
are right, — you and Parpon. But I cannot forgive 


102 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


myself ; he was so fine a man : tall, with a grand look, 
and a tongue like a book. Ah, yes, I can laugh at 
myself — for a fool.'^ 

He thrust his hands into his pockets, and tapped 
the ground nervously with his foot, shrugging his 
shoulders a little. The priest took off his hat and 
made the sacred gesture, his lips moving. Armand 
caught off his hat also, and said, “ You pray — for 
him?” 

“ For the peace of a good man’s soul.” 

“ He did not confess ; he had no rites of the Church ; 
he had refused you many years.” 

“ My son, he had a confessor.” 

Armand raised his eyebrows. “ They told me of 
no one.” 

“ It was the Angel of Patience.” 

They walked on again for a time without a word. 
At last the Cure said, “ You will remain here ? ” 

I cannot tell. This ‘ here ’ is a small world, and 
the little life may fret me. Nor do I know what I have 
of this ” — he waved his hands towards the house — or 
of my father’s property. I may need to be a wanderer 
again.” 

“ God forbid ! Have you not seen the will ? ” 

“ I have got no farther than his grave,” was the som- 
bre reply. 

The priest sighed. They paced the walk again in 
silence. At last the Cure said: “You will make the 
place cheerful, as it once was.” 

“ You are persistent,” replied the young man, smil- 
ing. “Whoever lives here should make it less gloomy.” 

“We shall soon know who is to live here. See, there 
is Monsieur Garon, and Monsieur Medallion also.” 

“ The Avocat to tell secrets, the auctioneer to sell 


PARPON THE DWARF 


103 


them — eh ? ” Armand went forward to the gate. Like 
most people, he found Medallion interesting, and the 
Avocat and he were old friends. 

“ You did not send for me. Monsieur,” said the 
Avocat timidly, ‘‘but I thought it well to come, that you 
might know how things are ; and Monsieur Medallion 
came because he is a witness to the will, and, in a case,” 
— here the little man coughed nervously, — “ joint 
executor with Monsieur le Cure.” 

They entered the house. In a businesslike way 
Armand motioned them to chairs, opened the curtains, 
and rang the bell. The old housekeeper appeared, a 
sorrowful joy in her face, and Armand said, “ Give us 
a bottle of the white-top, Sylvie, if there is any left.” 

“ There is plenty. Monsieur,” she said ; “ none has 
been drunk these twelve years.” 

The Avocat coughed, and said hesitatingly to Ar- 
mand : “ I asked Parpon the dwarf to come. Monsieur. 
There is a reason.” 

Armand raised his eyebrows in surprise. “ Very 
good,” he said. “ When will he be here ? ” 

“ He is waiting at the Louis Quinze hotel.” 

“ I will send for him,” said Armand, and gave the 
message to Sylvie, who was entering the room. 

After they had drunk the wine placed before them, 
there was silence for a moment, for all were wondering 
why Parpon should be remembered in the Seigneur’s 
will. 

“ Well,” said Medallion at last, “ a strange little dog 
is Parpon. I could surprise you about him — and, there 
isn’t any reason why I should keep the thing to myself. 
One day I was up among the rocks, looking for a 
strayed horse. I got tired, and lay down in the shade 
of the Rock of Red Pigeons — you know it. I fell 


4 ’ 


104 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


asleep. Something waked me. I got up and heard 
the finest singing you can guess : not like any I ever 
heard; a wild, beautiful, shivery sort of thing. I lis- 
tened for a long time. At last it stopped. Then 
something slid down the rock. I peeped out, and saw 
Parpon toddling away.” 

The Cure stared incredulously, the Avocat took off 
his glasses and tapped his lips musingly, Armand 
whistled softly. 

“ So,” said Armand at last, “ we have the jewel in 
the toad’s head. The clever imp hid it all these years 
— even from you. Monsieur le Cure.” 

“ Even from me,” said the Cure, smiling. Then, 
gravely : “ It is strange, the angel in the stunted body.” 

“ Are you sure it’s an angel ? ” said Armand. 

“ Whoever knew Parpon do any harm ? ” queried the 
Cure. 

“ He has always been kind to the poor,” put in the 
Avocat. 

“ With the miller’s flour,” laughed Medallion : a 
pardonable sin.” He gave a quizzical look at the 
Cure. 

“ Do you remember the words of Parpon’s song ? ” 
asked Armand. 

“ Only a few lines ; and those not easy to understand, 
unless one had an inkling.” 

“ Had you the inkling? ” 

“ Perhaps, Monsieur,” replied Medallion, seriously. 

They eyed each other. 

“We will have Parpon in after the will is read,” said 
Armand suddenly, looking at the Avocat. The Avocat 
drew the deed from his pocket. He looked up hesi- 
tatingly, and then said to Armand, “ You insist on it 
beinp- read now? ” 


PARPON THE DWARF 


105 


Armand nodded coolly, after a quick glance at 
Medallion. Then the Avocat began, and read to that 
point where the Seigneur bequeathed all his property 
to his son, should he return — on a condition. When 
the Avocat came to the condition Armand stopped 
him. 

“ I do not know in the least what it may be,” he said ; 
“ but there is only one by which I could feel bound. 
I will tell you. My father and I quarrelled ” — here 
he paused for a moment, clenching his hands before 
him on the table — “ about a woman ; and years of 
misery came. I was to blame in not obeying him. I 
ought not to have given any cause for gossip. What- 
ever the condition as to that matter may be, I will ful- 
fil it. My father is more to me than any woman in 
the world ; his love of me was greater than that of any 
woman. I know the world — and women.” 

There was a silence. He waved his hand to the 
Avocat to go on, and, as he did so, the Cure caught 
his arm with a quick, affectionate gesture. Then Mon- 
sieur Garon read the conditions : That Farette, the 
miller, should have a deed of the land on which his 
mill was built, with the dam of the mill — provided that 
Armand should never so much as by a word again 
address Julie, the miller’s wife. If he agreed to the 
condition, with solemn oath before the Cure, his bless- 
ing would rest upon his dear son, whom he still hoped 
to see before he died. 

When the reading ceased there was silence for a 
moment, then Armand stood up, and took the will 
from the Avocat ; but instantly, without looking at it, 
handed it back. “ The reading is not finished,” he 
said. “ And if I do not accept the condition, what 
then?” 


io6 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


Again Monsieur Garon read, his voice trembling a 
little. The words of the will ran : — “ But if this con- 
dition be not satisfied, I bequeath to my son Armand 
the house known as the House with the Tall Porch 
and the land, according to the deed thereof : and the 
residue of my property — with the exception of two 
thousand dollars, which I leave to the Cure of the 
parish, the good Monsieur Fabre — I bequeath to Par- 
pon the dwarf.” 

Then followed a clause providing that in any case 
Parpon should have in fee simple the land known as 
the Bois Noir, and the hut thereon. 

Armand sprang to his feet in surprise, blurting out 
something, then sat down, quietly took the will, and 
read it through carefully. When he had finished he 
looked inquiringly, first at Monsieur Garon, then at the 
Cure. 

“ Why Parpon ? ” he said, searchingly. 

The Cure, amazed, spread out his hands in a helpless 
way. At that moment Sylvie announced Parpon. 
Armand asked that he should be sent in. “Well 
talk of the will afterwards,” he added. 

Parpon trotted in, the door closed, and he stood 
blinking at them. Armand put a stool on the table. 
“ Sit here, Parpon,” he said. Medallion caught the 
dwarf under the arms and lifted him on the table. 

Parpon looked at Armand furtively. “ The wild 
hawk comes back to its nest,” he said. “ Well, well, 
what is it you want with the poor Parpon ? ” 

He sat down and dropped his chin in his hands, 
looking round keenly. Armand nodded to Medallion, 
and Medallion to the priest, but the priest nodded back 
again. Then Medallion said, “ You and I know the 
Rock of Red Pigeons, Parpon. It is a good place to 


PARPON THE DWARF 


107 


perch. One’s voice is all to one’s self there, as you 
know. Well, sing us the song of the little brown 
diver.” 

Parpon’s hands twitched in his beard. He looked 
fixedly at Medallion. Presently he turned towards 
the Cure, and shrank so that he looked smaller still. 

“ It’s all right, little son,” said the Cure kindly. 

Turning sharply on Medallion : “ When was it you 
heard ? ” he said. 

Medallion told him. He nodded, then sat very still. 
They said nothing, but watched him. They saw his 
eyes grow distant and absorbed, and his face took on 
a shining look, so that its ugliness was almost beauti- 
ful. All at once he slid from the stool and crouched 
on his knees. Then he sent out a low long note, like 
the toll of the bell-bird. From that time no one stirred 
as he sang, but sat and watched him. They did not 
even hear Sylvie steal in gently and stand in the cur- 
tains at the door. 

The song was weird, with a strange thrilling charm ; 
it had the slow dignity of a chant, the roll of an epic, 
the delight of wild beauty. It told of the little good 
Folk of the Scarlet Hills, in vague allusive phrases : 
their noiseless wanderings ; their sojourning with the 
eagle, the wolf, and the deer; their triumph over the 
winds, the whirlpools, and the spirits of evil fame. It 
filled the room with the cry of the west wind ; it called 
out of the frozen seas ghosts of forgotten worlds; it 
coaxed the soft breezes out of the South ; it made them 
all to be at the whistle of the Scarlet Hunter who ruled 
the North. 

Then, passing through veil after veil of mystery, it 
told of a grand Seigneur whose boat was overturned in 
a whirlpool, and was saved by a little brown diver. 


io8 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


And the end of it all, and the heart of it all, was in the 
last few lines, clear of allegory : 

“ And the wheel goes round in the village mill, 

And the little brown diver he tells the grain . . . 

And the grand Seigneur he has gone to meet 
The little good Folk of the Scarlet Hills ! ” 

At first, all were so impressed by the strange power 
of Parpon’s voice, that they were hardly conscious of 
the story he was telling. But when he sang of the 
Seigneur they began to read his parable. Their hearts 
throbbed painfully. 

As the last notes died away Armand got up, and, 
standing by the table, said, ‘‘ Parpon, you saved my 
father’s life once ? ” 

Parpon did not answer. 

“Will you not tell him, my son?” said the Cure, 
rising. Still Parpon was silent. 

“ The son of your grand Seigneur asks you a ques- 
tion, Parpon,” said Medallion soothingly. 

“ Oh, my grand Seigneur ! ” said Parpon, throwing 
up his hands. “ Once he said to me, ‘ Come, my 
brown diver, and live with me.’ But I said, ‘ No, I 
am not fit. I will never go to you at the House with 
the Tall Porch.’ And I made him promise that he 
would never tell of it. And so I have lived sometimes 
with old Farette,” Then he laughed strangely again, 
and sent a furtive look at Armand. 

“ Parpon,” said Armand gently, “ our grand Seig- 
neur has left you the Bois Noir for your own. So, 
the hills and the Rock of Red Pigeons are for you — 
and the little good people, if you like.” 

Parpon, with fiery eyes, gathered himself up with a 
quick movement, then broke out, “ Oh, my grand 


PARPON THE DWARF 


109 


Seigneur ! my grand Seigneur ! ” and fell forward, his 
head in his arms, laughing and sobbing together. 

Armand touched his shoulder. “ Parpon ! ” But 
Parpon shrank away. 

Armand turned to the rest. “ I do not understand 
it, gentlemen. Parpon does not like the young Seig- 
neur as he liked the old.” 

Medallion, sitting in the shadow, smiled. He under- 
stood. Armand continued : “ As for this testament, 
gentlemen, I will fulfil its conditions ; though I swear, 
were I otherwise minded regarding the woman,” — here 
Parpon raised his head swiftly, — “ I would not hang 
my hat for an hour in the Tall Porch.” 

They rose and shook hands, then the wine was 
poured out, and they drank it off in silence. Parpon, 
however, sat with his head in his hands. 

“ Come, little comrade, drink,” said Medallion, offer- 
ing him a glass. 

Parpon made no reply, but caught up the will, kissed 
it, put it into Armand’s hand, and then, jumping down 
from the table, ran to the door and disappeared through 
it. 


IV 

The next afternoon the Avocat visited old Farette. 
Farette was polishing a gun, mumbling the while. 
Sitting on some bags of meal was Parpon, with a fierce 
twinkle in his eye. Monsieur Garon told Farette 
briefly what the Seigneur had left him. With a quick, 
greedy chuckle Farette threw the gun away. 

“ Man alive ! ” said he ; “ tell me all about it. Ah, 
the good news ! ” ^ - 

“ There is nothing to tell : he left it; that is all.” 


no BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


“ Oh, the good Seigneur ! ” cried Farette, “ the 
grand Seigneur ! ’’ 

Some one laughed scornfully in the doorway. It 
was Julie. 

“ Look there ! she cried : “ he gets the land, and 
throws away the gun ! Brag and coward, miller ! It 
is for me to say ‘ the grand Seigneur ! ’ ” 

She tossed her head : she thought the old Seigneur 
had relented towards her. She turned away to the 
house with a flaunting air, and got her hat. At first 
she thought she would go to the House with the Tall 
Porch, but she changed her mind, and went to the 
Bois Noir instead. Parpon followed her a distance 
off. Behind, in the mill, Farette was chuckling and 
rubbing his hands. 

Meanwhile, Armand was making his way towards 
the Bois Noir. All at once, in the shade of a great 
pine, he stopped. He looked about him astonished. 

“ This is the old place ! What a fool I was, then ! ” 
he said. 

At that moment Julie came quickly, and lifted her 
hands towards him. “ Armand — beloved Armand ! ” 
she said. 

Armand looked at her sternly, from her feet to her 
pitted forehead, then wheeled, and left her without a 
word. 

She sank in a heap on the ground. There was a 
sudden burst of tears, and then she clenched her hands 
with fury. 

Some one laughed in the trees above her — a shrill, 
wild laugh. She looked up, frightened. Parpon 
presently dropped down beside her. 

“ It was as I said,” whispered the dwarf, and he 


PARPON THE DWARF 


III 


touched her shoulder. This was the full cup of shame. 
She was silent. 

“ There are others/’ he whispered again. She could 
not see his strange smile ; but she noticed that his voice 
was not as usual. “ Listen/’ he urged, and he sang 
softly over her shoulder for quite a minute. She was 
amazed. 

“ Sing again,” she said. 

“ I have wanted to sing to you like that for many 
years,” he replied ; and he sang a little more. “ He 
cannot sing like that,” he wheedled, and he stretched 
his arm around her shoulder. 

She hung her head, then flung it back again as she 
thought of Armand. 

“ I hate him ! ” she cried : ‘‘ I hate him ! ” 

“ You will not throw meal on me any more, or call 
me idiot ? ” he pleaded. 

“ No, Parpon,” she said. 

He kissed her on the cheek. She did not resent it. 
But now he drew away, smiled wickedly at her, and 
said : “ See, we are even now, poor Julie ! ” Then 

he laughed, holding his little sides with huge hands. 

Imbecile ! ” he added, and, turning, trotted away 
towards the Rock of Red Pigeons. 

She threw herself, face forward, in the dusty needles 
of the pines. 

When she rose from her humiliation, her face was as 
one who has seen the rags of harlequinade stripped 
from that mummer Life, leaving only naked being. 
She had touched the limits of the endurable ; her sor- 
did little hopes had split into fragments. But when a 
human soul faces upon its past, and sees a gargoyle at 
every milestone where an angel should be, and in one 
flash of illumination — the touch of genius to the small- 


1 12 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


€st mind — understands the pitiless comedy, there 
comes the still stoic outlook. 

Julie was transformed. All the possible years of her 
life were gathered into the force of one dreadful mo- 
ment — dreadful and wonderful. Her mean vanity was 
lost behind the pale sincerity of her face — she was sin- 
cere at last ! The trivial commonness was gone from 
her coquetting shoulders and drooping eyelids ; and 
from her body had passed its flexuous softness. She 
was a woman ; suflering, human, paying the price. 

She walked slowly the way that Parpon had gone. 
Looking neither to right nor left, she climbed the long 
hillside, and at last reached the summit, where, bundled 
in a steep corner, was the Rock of Red Pigeons. As 
she emerged from the pines, she stood for a moment, 
and leaned with outstretched hand against a tree, look- 
ing into the sunlight. Slowly her eyes shifted from 
the Rock to the great ravine, to whose farther side 
the sun was giving bastions of gold. She was quiet. 
Presently she stepped into the light and came softly 
to the Rock. She walked slowly round it, as though 
looking for some one. At the lowest side of the Rock, 
rude narrow hollows were cut for the feet. With a 
singular ease she climbed to the top ot it. It had a 
kind of hollow, in which was a rude seat, carved out of 
the stone. Seeing this, a set look came to her face: 
she was thinking of Parpon, the master of this place. 
Her business was with him. 

She got down slowly, and came over to the edge 
of the precipice. Steadying herself against a sapling, 
she looked over. Down below was a whirlpool, rising 
and falling — a hungry funnel of death. She drew 
back. Presently she peered again, and once more 
withdrew. She gazed round, and then made another 


PARPON THE DWARF 


113 

tour of the hill, searching. She returned to the preci- 
pice. As she did so she heard a voice. She looked 
and saw Parpon seated upon a ledge of rock not far 
below. A mocking laugh floated up to her. But 
there was trouble in the laugh too — a bitter sickness. 
She did not notice that. She looked about her. Not 
far away was a stone, too heavy to carry but perhaps 
not too heavy to roll ! 

Foot by foot she rolled it over. She looked. He 
was still there. She stepped back. As she did so a 
few pebbles crumbled away from her feet and fell 
where Parpon perched. She did not see or hear them 
fall. He looked up, and saw the stone creeping upon 
the edge. Like a flash he was on his feet, and, spring- 
ing into the air to the right, caught a tree steadfast in 
the rock. The stone fell upon the ledge and bounded 
off again. The look of the woman did not follow the 
stone. She ran to the spot above the whirlpool, and 
sprang out and down. 

From Parpon there came a wail such as the hills of 
the north never heard before. Dropping upon a ledge 
beneath, and from that to a jutting tree, which gave 
way, he shot down into the whirlpool. He caught 
Julie’s body as it was churned from life to death : and 
then he fought. There was a demon in the whirlpool, 
but God and demon were working in the man. Noth- 
ing on earth could have unloosed that long, brown 
arm from Julie’s drenched body. The sun lifted an 
eyelid over the yellow bastions of rock, and saw the 
fight. Once, twice, the shaggy head was caught be- 
neath the surface — but at last the man conquered ! 

Inch by inch, foot by foot, Parpon, with the lifeless 
Julie clamped in one arm, climbed the rough wall, on, 
on, up to the Rock of Red Pigeons. He bore her to 


14 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


the top of it. Then he laid her down, and pillowed 
her head on his wet coat. 

It is pitiful to see life hungering over death. The 
huge hands came slowly down Julie’s soaked hair, 
along her blanched cheek and shoulders, caught her 
arms and held them. He peered into her face. The 
eyes had the film which veils Here from Hereafter. 
On the lips was a mocking smile. He stooped as if 
to kiss her. The smile stopped him. He drew back 
for a time, then he leaned forward, shut his eyes, and 
her cold lips were his. 

Twilight — dusk — night came upon Parpon and his 
dead — the woman whom an impish fate had put into 
his heart with mockery and futile pain. 


TIMES WERE HARD IN PONTIAC 


I T was soon after the Rebellion, and there was little 
food to be had and less money, and winter was at 
hand. Pontiac, ever most loyal to old France, though 
obedient to the English, had herself sent few recruits 
to be shot down by Colborne, but she had emptied her 
pockets in sending to the front the fullness of her 
barns and the best cattle of her fields. She gave her 
all, she was frank in giving, hid nothing; and when her 
own trouble came there was no voice calling on her 
behalf. And Pontiac would rather starve than beg. 
So, as the winter went on, she starved in silence, and no 
one had more than sour milk and bread and a potato 
now and then. The Cure, the Avocat and the Little 
Chemist fared no better than the “ habitants,” for they 
gave all they had right and left, and themselves often 
went hungry to bed. And the truth is that few out- 
side Pontiac knew of her suffering ; she kept the secret 
of it close. 

It seemed at last, however, to the Cure that he must, 
after all, write to the world outside for help. That was 
when he saw the faces of the children get pale and 
drawn. There never was a time when there were so 
few fish in the river and so little game in the woods. 
At last, from the altar steps one Sunday, the Cure, with 
a calm, sad voice, told the people that, for “ the dear 
children’s sake,” they must sink their pride and ask 
help from without. He would write first to the Bishop 


ii6 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


of Quebec ; “ for,” said he, “ Mother Church will 
help us ; she will give us food, and money to buy seed 
in the spring; and, please God, we will pay all back 
in a year or two.” He paused a minute, then contin- 
ued : “ Some one must go, to speak plainly and wisely 
of our trouble, that there be no mistake — we are not 
beggars, we are only borrowers. Who will go? I 
may not myself, for who would give the Blessed Sac- 
rament, and speak to the sick, or say Mass and com- 
fort you ? ” 

There was silence in the church for a moment, and 
many faces meanwhile turned instinctively to M. Garon 
the Avocat, and some to the Little Chemist. 

“Who will go?” asked the Cure again. “ It is a 
bitter journey, but our pride must not be our shame in 
the end. Who will go? ” 

Every one expected that the Avocat, or the Little 
Chemist would rise ; but while they looked at each 
other, waiting and sorrowful, and the Avocat’s fingers 
fluttered to the seat in front of him, to draw himself up, 
a voice came from the corner opposite, saying : 

“ M’sieu’ le Cure, I will go.” 

A strange, painful silence fell on the people for a 
moment, and then went round an almost incredulous 
whisper : “ Parpon, the dwarf ! ” 

Parpon’s deep eyes were fixed on the Cure, his 
hunched body leaning on the railing in front of him, 
his long, strong arms stretched out as if he were beg- 
ging for some good thing. The murmur among the 
people increased, but the Cure raised his hand to com- 
mand silence, and his eyes gazed steadily at the dwarf. 
It might seem that he was noting the huge head, the 
shaggy hair, the overhanging brows, the weird face of 
this distortion of a thing made in God’s own image. 


TIMES WERE HARD IN PONTIAC 117 

But he was thinking instead of how the angel and the 
devil may live side by side in a man and neither be 
entirely driven out — and the angel conquer in great 
times and seasons. 

He beckoned to Parpon to come over, and the dwarf 
trotted with a sidelong motion to the chancel steps. 
Every face in the congregation was eager, and some 
were mystified, even anxious. They all knew the 
singular power of the little man— his knowledge, his 
deep wit, his judgment, his occasional fierceness, his 
infrequent malice; but he was kind to children and the 
sick, and the Cure and the Avocat and their little cote- 
rie respected him. Once everybody had worshipped 
him : that was when he had sung in the Mass, the day 
of the funeral of the wife of Farette the miller, for 
whom he worked. It had been rumored that in his 
hut by the Rock of Red Pigeons, up at Dalgrothe 
Mountain, a voice of most wonderful power and sweet- 
ness had been heard singing ; but this was only rumor. 
Yet when the body of the miller’s wife lay in the church, 
he had sung so that men and women wept and held 
each other’s hands for joy. He had never sung since, 
however; his voice of silver was locked away in the 
cabinet of secret purposes which every man has in his 
own soul somewhere. 

“ What will you say to the Bishop, Parpon ? ” asked 
the Cure. 

The congregation stirred in their seats, for they saw 
that the Cure intended Parpon to go. 

Parpon went up two steps of the chancel quietly and 
caught the arm of the Cure, drawing him down to 
whisper in his ear. 

A flush and then a peculiar soft light passed over the 
Cure’s face, and he raised his hand over Parpon’s head 


ii8 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


in benediction and said: “ Go, my son, and the blessing 
of God and of His dear Son be with you” 

Then suddenly he turned to the altar, and, raising 
his hands, he tried to speak, but only said: “ O Lord, 
Thou knowest our pride and our vanity, hear us, 
and ” 

Soon afterward, with tearful eyes, he preached from 
the text : 

''And the Light shineth in darkness^ and the dark- 
ness comprehendeth it not” 

Five days later a little, uncouth man took off his hat 
in the chief street of Quebec, and began to sing a song 
of Picardy to an air which no man in French Canada 
had ever heard. Little farmers on their way to the 
market by the Place de Cathedral stopped, listening, 
though every moment’s delay lessened their chances 
of getting a stand in the market place. Butchers and 
milkmen loitered, regardless of waiting customers; a 
little company of soldiers caught up the chorus, and, 
to avoid involuntary revolt, their sergeant halted them, 
that they might listen. Gentlemen strolling by — 
doctor, lawyer, officer, idler — paused and forgot the 
raw climate, for this marvellous voice in the unshapely 
body warmed them, and they pushed in among the 
fast-gathering crowd. Ladies hurrying by in their 
sleighs lost their hearts to the thrilling notes of : 

“ Little gray fisherman, 

Where is your daughter? 

Where is your daughter so sweet ? 

Little gray man who comes 
Over the water, 

I have knelt down at her feet. 

Knelt at your Gabrielle’s feet — ci ci ! ” 


TIMES WERE HARD IN PONTIAC 119 


Presently the wife of the governor stepped out from 
her sleigh, and, coming over, quickly took Parpon’s 
cap from his hand and went round among the crowd 
with it, gathering money. 

“ He is hungry, he is poor,” she said with tears in 
her eyes. She had known the song in her childhood, 
and he who used to sing it to her was in her sight no 
more. In vain the gentlemen would have taken the 
cap from her; she gathered the money herself, and 
others followed, and Parpon sang on. 

A night later a crowd gathered in the great hall of 
the city, filling it to the doors, to hear the dwarf sing. 
He came on the platform dressed as he had entered the 
city, with heavy, home-made coat and trousers, and 
moccasins, and a red woollen comforter about his neck 
— but this comforter he took off when he began to sing. 
Old France and New France, and the loves and hates 
and joys and sorrows of all lands, met that night in the 
soul of this dwarf with the divine voice, who did not 
give them his name, so that they called him, for want 
of a better title, the Provenqal. And again two nights 
afterwards it was the same, and yet again a third night 
and a fourth, and the simple folk, and wise folk also, 
went mad after Parpon the dwarf. 

Then, suddenly, he disappeared from Quebec City, 
and, the next Sunday morning, while the Cure was 
saying the last words of the Mass, he entered the 
Church of St. Saviour at Pontiac. Going up to the 
chancel steps he waited. The murmuring of the peo- 
ple drew the Cure’s attention, and then, seeing Parpon, 
he came forward. 

Parpon drew from his breast a bag, and put it in his 
hands, and beckoning down the Cure’s head, he whis- 
pered. 


120 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


The Cure turned to the altar and raised the bag to- 
wards it in ascription and thanksgiving, then he turned 
to Parpon again, but the dwarf was trotting away down 
the aisle and from the church. 

“ Dear children,” said the Cure, “ we are saved, and 
we are not shamed.” He held up the bag. “ Parpon 
has brought us two thousand dollars: we shall have 
food to eat, and there shall be more money against 
seed-time. The giver of this good gift demands that 
his name be not known. Such is all true charity. Let 
us pray.” 

So hard times passed from Pontiac as the months 
went on, but none save the Cure and the Avocat knew 
who had helped her in her hour of need. 


MEDALLION’S WHIM 


W HEN the Avocat began to lose his health and 
spirits, and there crept through his shrewd 
gravity and kindliness a petulance and dejection, Me- 
dallion was the only person who had an inspiriting ef- 
fect upon him. The Little Chemist had decided that 
the change in him was due to bad circulation and fail- 
ing powers : which was only partially true. 

Medallion made a deeper guess. “ Want to know 
what’s the matter with him ? ” he said. “ Ha ! I’ll tell 
you: Woman.” 

“ W Oman ! God bless me ! ” said the Little Chemist, 
in a frightened way. 

“ Woman, little man ; I mean the want of a woman,” 
said Medallion. 

The Cure, who was present, shrugged his shoul- 
ders. “ He has an excellent cook, and his bed and 
jackets are well aired ; I see them constantly at the 
windows.” 

A laugh gurgled in Medallion’s throat. He loved 
these innocent folk; but himself went twice a year to 
Quebec city, and had more expanded views. 

“ Woman, Padre ” — nodding to the priest, and rub- 
bing his chin so that it rasped like sand-paper — “ Wo- 
man ! my druggist ” — throwing a sly look at the Chem- 
ist — “ woman, neither as cook nor bottle-washer, is 
what he needs. Every man — out of holy orders ” — 
this in deference to his good friend the Cure — “ arrives 


122 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


at the time when his youth must be renewed or he be- 
comes as dry bones — like an empty house — furniture 
sold off. Can only be, renewed one way — Woman. 
Well, here’s our Avocat, and there’s his remedy. He’s 
got the cooking and the clean fresh linen, he must have 
a wife, the very best.” 

“ Ah, my friend, you are droll,” said the Cure, arch- 
ing his long fingers at his lips and blowing gently 
through them, but not smiling in the least; rather 
serious, almost reproving. 

“ It is such a whim, such a whim ! ” said the Little 
Chemist, shaking his head and looking through his 
glasses sideways like a wise bird. 

“Ha! You shall see. The man must be saved; 
our Cure shall have his fees ; our druggist shall pro- 
vide the finest essences for the feast — no more pills. 
And we shall dine with our Avocat once a week — with 
asparagus in season for the Cure, and a little good wine 
for all. Pla!” 

His Ha! was never a laugh ; it was unctuous, abrupt, 
an ejaculation of satisfaction, knowledge, solid enjoy- 
ment, final solution. 

The Cure shook his head doubtfully ; he did not see 
the need ; he did not believe in Medallion’s whim ; still 
he knew that the man’s judgment was shrewd in most 
things, and he would be silent and wait. But he shrank 
from any new phase of life likely to alter the conditions 
of that old companionship, which included themselves, 
the Avocat, and the young Doctor, who, like the Little 
Chemist, was married. 

The Chemist sharply said : “ Well, well, perhaps. I 
hope. There is a poetry (his English was not perfect, 
and at times he mixed it with French in an amusing 
manner), a little chanson, which runs : 


MEDALLION’S WHIM 


123 


“ Sorrowful is the little house, 

The little house by the winding stream ; 
All the laughter has died away 
Out of the little house, 

But down there come from the lofty hills 
Footsteps and eyes agleam, 

Bringing the laughter of yesterday 
Into the little house. 

By the winding stream and the hills. 

Di roHy di ron, di ron, di r on-don ! ” 


The Little Chemist blushed faintly at the silence that 
followed his timid, quaint recital. The Cure looked 
calm and kind and drawn away as if in thought; but 
Medallion presently got up, stooped, and laid his long 
fingers on the shoulder of the apothecary. 

“ Exactly, little man,” he said, “ we’ve both got the 
same idea in our heads ; I’ve put it hard fact, you’ve put 
it soft sentiment, and it’s God’s truth either way.” 

Presently the Cure asked, as if from a great distance, 
so meditative was his voice, “ Who will be the woman. 
Medallion?” 

“ I’ve got one in my eye — the very right one for our 
Avocat; not here, not out of Pontiac, but from St. 
Jean in the hills — fulfilling your verses, gentle apothe- 
cary. She must bring what is fresh — he must feel that 
the hills have come to him, she that the valley is hers 
for the first time. A new world for them both. Ha ! ” 

“ Regardezqa! you are a great man,” said the Little 
Chemist. 

There was a strange, inscrutable look in the kind 
priest’s eyes. The Avocat had confessed to him in his 
time. 

Medallion took up his hat. 

Where are you going? ” said the Little Chemist. 


24 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


“ To our Avocat, and then to St. Jean.” 

He opened the door and vanished. The two that 
were left shook their heads and wondered. 

Chuckling softly to himself, Medallion strode away 
through the lane of white-board houses and the smoke 
of strong tabac from these houses, now and then pulling 
suddenly up to avoid stumbling over a child, where 
children are numbered by the dozen to every house. 
He came at last to a house unlike the others, in that it 
was of stone and larger. He leaned for a moment 
over the gate, and looked through a window into a 
room where the Avocat sat propped up with cushions 
in a great chair, staring gloomily at two candles burn- 
ing on the table before him. Medallion watched him 
for a long time. The Avocat never changed his posi- 
tion ; he only stared at the candle, and once or twice his 
lips moved. A woman came in and put a steaming 
bowl before him, and laid a pipe and matches beside the 
bowl. She was a very little, thin old woman, quick and 
quiet and watchful — his housekeeper. The Avocat 
took no notice of her. She looked at him several times 
anxiously, and passed backwards and forwards behind 
him as a hen moves upon the flank of her brood. All 
at once she stopped. Her small, white fingers with 
their large rheumatic knuckles lay flat on her lips as 
she stood for an instant musing; then she trotted 
lightly to a bureau, got pen and paper and ink, reached 
down a bunch of keys from the mantel, and came and 
put them all beside the bowl and the pipe. Still the 
Avocat did not stir, or show that he recognized her. 
She went to the door, turned, and looked back, her 
fingers again at her lips, then slowly sidled out of the 
room. It was long before the Avocat moved. His 


MEDALLION’S WHIM 


125 


eyes had not wavered from the space between the 
candles. At last, however, he glanced down. His 
eye caught the bowl, then the pipe. He reached out a 
slow hand for the pipe, and was taking it up, when his 
glance fell on the keys and the writing material. He 
put the pipe down, looked up at the door through 
which the little old woman had gone, gazed round the 
room, took up the keys, but soon put them down again 
with a sigh, and settled back in his chair. Now his 
gaze alternated between that long lane, sloping into 
shadow between the candles, and the keys. 

Medallion threw a leg over the fence and came in a 
few steps to the door. He opened it quietly and en- 
tered. In the dark he felt his way along the wall to the 
door of the Avocat’s room, opened it, and thrust in his 
ungainly, whimsical face. 

“ Ha ! ” he laughed with quick-winking eyes. 
“ Evening, Garon. Live the Code Napoleon ! Pipes 
for two.” 

A change came slowly over the Avocat. His eyes 
drew away from that vista between the candles, and the 
strange distant look faded out of them. 

“ Great is the Code Napoleon ! ” he said mecham 
ically. Then presently : “ Ah, my friend. Medallion ! ” 

His first words were the answer to a formula which 
always passed between them on meeting. As soon as 
Garon had said them. Medallion’s lanky body followed 
his face, and in a moment he had the Avocat’s hand in 
his, swallowing it, of purpose crushing it, so that 
Monsieur Garon waked up smartly and gave his visitor 
a pensive smile. Medallion’s cheerful nervous vitality 
seldom failed to inspire whom he chose to inspire with 
something of his own life and cheerfulness. In a few 
moments both the Avocat and himself were smoking. 


126 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


and the contents of the steaming bowl were divided be- 
tween them. Medallion talked on many things. The 
little old housekeeper came in, chirped a soft good- 
evening, flashed a small thankful smile at Medallion, 
and, after renewing the bowl and lighting two more tall 
candles, disappeared. Medallion began with the 
parish, passed to the law, from the law to Napoleon, 
from Napoleon to France, and from France to the 
world, drawing out from the Avocat something of his 
old vivacity and Are. At last Medallion, seeing that 
the time was ripe, turned his glass round musingly in 
his fingers before him, and said : 

“ Benoit, Annette’s husband, died to-day, Garon. 
You knew him. He went singing — gone in the head, 
but singing as he used to do before he married — or got 
drunk ! Perhaps his youth came back to him when 
he was going to die, just for a minute.” 

The Avocat’s eye gazed at Medallion earnestly now, 
and Medallion went on : 

“ As good singing as you want to hear. You’ve 
heard the words of the song — the river-drivers sing it : 

‘ ‘ What is there like to the cry of the bird 
That sings in its nest in the lilac tree ? 

A voice the sweetest you ever have heard ; 

It is there, it is here, a, ci ! 

It is there, it is here, it must roam and roam. 

And wander from shore to shore. 

Till I go forth and bring it home. 

And enter and close my door — 

^ Row along, row along home, ci ! ” 


When Medallion had finished saying the first verse 
he waited, but the Avocat said nothing ; his eyes were 
now fastened again on that avenue between the candles 


MEDALLION’S WHIM 


127 


leading out into the immortal part of him — his past ; he 
was busy with a life that had once been spent in the 
fields of Fontainebleau and the shadow of the Pan- 
theon. 

Medallion went on : 

“ What is there like to the laughing star, 

Far up from the lilac tree ? 

A face that’s brighter and finer far ; 

It laughs and it shines, a, ci ! 

It laughs and it shines, it must roam and roam 
And travel from shore to shore. 

Till I go forth and bring it home. 

And house it within my door — 

Row along, row along home, «, ci ! ” 

When Medallion had finished he raised his glass and 
said : “ Garon, I drink to home and woman ! ” 

He waited. The Avocat’s eyes drew away from the 
candles again, and he came to his feet suddenly, sway- 
ing slightly as he did so. He caught up a glass and, 

lifting it, said : “ I drink to home and ” a little cold 

burst of laughter came from him, he threw his head 
back with something like disdain — “ and the Code Na- 
poleon ! ” he added abruptly. 

Then he put the glass down without drinking, 
wheeled back, and dropped into his chair. Presently 
he got up, took his keys, went over, opened the bureau, 
and brought back a well-worn note-book which looked 
like a diary. He seemed to have forgotten Medallion’s 
presence, but it was not so ; he had reached the moment 
of disclosure which comes to every man, no matter how 
secretive, when he must tell what is on his mind or die. 
He opened the book with trembling fingers, took a pen 
and wrote, at first slowly, while Medallion smoked : 

5 


128 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


“ September 13th. — It is five-and- twenty years ago 
to-day — Mon Dieu, how we danced that night on the 
flags before the Sorbonne ! How gay we were in the 
Maison Bleu! We were gay and happy — Julie and I 
— two rooms and a few francs ahead every week. That 
night we danced and poured out the light wine because 
we were to be married to-morrow. Perhaps there 
would be a child, if the priest blessed us, she whispered 
to me as we watched the soft-travelling moon in the 
gardens of the Luxembourg. Well, we danced. There 
was an artist with us. I saw him catch Julie about the 
waist, and kiss her on the neck. She was angry, but I 
did not think of that ; I was mad with wine. I quar- 
relled with her, and said to her a shameful thing. Then 
I rushed away. We were not married the next day; I 
could not find her. One night, soon after, there was a 
revolution of students in Mont Parnasse. I was hurt. 
I remember that she came to me then and nursed me, 
but when I got well she was gone. Then came the 
secret word from the Government that I must leave the 
country or go to prison. I came here. Alas! it is 
long since we danced before the Sorbonne, and supped 
at the Maison Bleu. I shall never see again the gar- 
dens of the Luxembourg. Well, that was a mad night 
five-and-twenty years ago ! ” 

His pen went faster and faster. His eyes lighted up, 
he seemed quite forgetful of Medallion’s presence. 
When he finished a fresh change came over him. He 
gathered his thin fingers in a bunch at his lips, and 
made an airy salute to the warm space between the 
candles. He drew himself together with a youthful 
air, and held his grey head gallantly. Youth and age 
in him seemed almost grotesquely mingled. Sprightly 
notes from the song of a cafe chantant hovered on his 


MEDALLION^S WHIM 


129 


thin, dry lips. Medallion, amused, yet Avith a hushed 
kind of feeling through all his nerves, pushed the Avo- 
cat’s tumbler till it touched his fingers. The thin 
fingers twined round it, and once more he came to his 
feet. He raised the glass. “ To — ” for a minute he 
got no further — “ To the wedding-eve ! ” he said, and 
sipped the hot wine. Presently he pushed the little 
well-worn book over to Medallion. “ I have known 
you fifteen years — read ! ” he said. He gave Medal- 
lion a meaning look out of his now flashing eyes. 

Medallion’s bony face responded cordially. “ Of 
course,” he answered, picked up the book, and read 
what the Avocat had written. It was on the last page. 
When he had finished reading, he held the book mus- 
ingly. His whim had suddenly taken on a new colour. 
The Avocat, who had been walking up and down the 
room, with the quick step of a young man, stopped be- 
fore him, took the book from him, turned to the first 
page, and handed it back silently. Medallion read : — 

“Quebec: September 13th, 18 — : It is one year 
since. I shall learn to laugh some day.” 

Medallion looked up at him. The old man threw 
back liis head, spread out the last page in the book 
which he had just written, and said defiantly, as though 
expecting contradiction to his self-deception : “ I have 
learned.” 

Then he laughed, but the laugh was dry and hollow 
and painful. It suddenly passed from his wrinkled 
lips, and he sat down again; but now with an air as 
of shyness and shame. “ Let us talk,” he said, “ of — 
of the Code Napoleon.” 

The next morning Medallion visited St. Jean in the 
hills. Five years before he had sold to a new-comer 


130 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


at St. Jean — ^Madame Lecyr — the furniture of a little 
house, and there had sprung up between them a quiet 
friendship, not the less admiring on Medallion’s part 
because Madame Lecyr was a good friend to the poor 
and sick. She never tired, when they met, of hearing 
him talk of the Cure, the Little Chemist and the Avo- 
cat ; and in the Avocat she seemed to take the most in- 
terest, making countless inquiries — countless when 
spread over many conversations — upon his life during 
the time Medallion had known him. He knew also 
that she came to Pontiac, occasionally, but only in the 
evening; and once of a moonlight night he had seen 
her standing before the window of the Avocat’s house. 
Once also he had seen her veiled in the little crowded 
court-room of Pontiac when an interesting case was 
being tried, and noticed how she watched Monsieur 
Garon, standing so very still that she seemed lifeless ; 
and how she stole out as soon as he had done speaking. 

Medallion had acute instincts, and was supremely a 
man of self-counsel. What he thought he kept to 
himself until there seemed necessity to speak. A few 
days before the momentous one herebefore described 
he had called at Madame Lecyr’s house, and in course 
of conversation told her that the Avocat’s health was 
breaking; that, the day before, he had got completely 
fogged in court over the simplest business, and was 
quite unlike his old, shrewd, kindly self. By this time 
he was almost prepared to see her turn pale and her 
fingers flutter at the knitting-needles she held. She 
made an excuse to leave the room for a moment. He 
saw a little book lying near the chair from which she 
had risen. Perhaps it had dropped from her pocket. 
He picked it up. It was a book of French songs — 
Beranger’s and others less notable. On the fly-leaf 


MEDALLION’S WHIM 


131 

was written: “ From Victor to Julie, September 13th, 
18—.” 

Presently she came back to him quite recovered and 
calm, inquired how the Avocat was cared for, and 
hoped he would have every comfort and care. Me- 
dallion grew on the instant bold. He was now certain 
that Victor was the Avocat, and Julie was Madame 
Lecyr. He said abruptly to her : “ Why not come and 
cheer him up ? — such old friends as you are ! ” 

At that she rose with a little cry, and stared anx- 
iously at him. He pointed to the book of songs. 
‘‘ Don’t be angry — I looked,” he said. 

She breathed quick and hard, and said nothing, 
but her fingers laced and interlaced nervously in her 
lap. 

“ If you were friends why don’t you go to him ? ” 
he said. 

She shook her head mournfully. ‘‘We were more 
than friends, and that is different.” 

“ You were his wife? ” said Medallion, gently. 

“ It was different,” she replied, flushing. “ France 
is not the same as here. We were to be married, 
but on the eve of our wedding day there was an end 
to it all. Only five years ago I found out he was 
here.” 

Then she became silent, and would, or could, speak 
ho more; only, she said at last before he went: “ You 
will not tell him, or any one ? ” 

She need not have asked Medallion. He knew 
many secrets and kept them — which is not the usual 
way of good-humoured people. 

But now, with the story told by the Avocat himself 
in his mind, he saw the end of the long romance. He 
came once more to the house of Madame Lecyr, and. 


132 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


being admitted, said to her : '' You must come at once 
with me.’' 

She trembled towards him. “ He is worse — he is 
dying ! ” 

He smiled. “Not dying at all. He needs you; 
come along. I’ll tell you as we go.” 

But she hung back. Then he told her all he had 
seen and heard the evening before. Without a word 
further she prepared to go. On the way he turned 
to her, and said, “ You are Madame Lecyr? ” 

“ I am as he left me,” she replied timidly, but with a 
kind of pride, too. 

“ Don’t mistake me,” he said. “ I thought perhaps 
you had been married since.” 

The Avocat sat in his little office, feebly fumbling 
among his papers, as Medallion entered on him and 
called to him cheerily : “ We are coming to see you to- 
night, Garon — the Cure, our Little Chemist, and the 
Seigneur ; coming to supper.” 

The Avocat put out his hand courteously; but he 
said in a shrinking, pained voice, “ No, no, not to- 
night, Medallion. I would wish no visitors this night 
—of all.” 

Medallion stooped over him, and caught him by both 
arms gently. “ We shall see,” he said. “ It is the 
anniversary,” he whispered. 

“ Ah, pardon” said the Avocat, with a reproving 
pride, and shrank back as if all his nerves had been laid 
bare. But Medallion turned, opened the door, went 
out, and let in a woman, who came forward and timidly 
raised her veil. 

“ Victor ! ” Medallion heard, then “ Julie ! ” and then 
he shut the door, and, with supper in his mind, 
went into the kitchen to see the housekeeper — who, in 


MEDALLION’S WHIM 133 

this new joy, had her own tragedy — humming to him- 
self : 


‘ ‘ But down there come from the lofty hills 
Footsteps and eyes agleam, 

Bringing the laughter of yesterday 
Into the little house.” 


THE PRISONER 


H IS chief occupation in the daytime was to stand on 
the bench by the small barred window and 
watch the pigeons on the roof and in the eaves of the 
house opposite. For five years he had done this. In 
the summer a great fire seemed to burn beneath the 
tin of the roof, for a quivering hot air rose from 
them, and the pigeons never alighted on them, save in 
the early morning or in the evening. Just over the 
peak could be seen the topmost branch of a maple, 
too slight to bear the weight of the pigeons, but the 
eaves were dark and cool, and there his eyes rested 
when he tired of the hard blue sky and the glare of the 
slates. 

In winter the roof was covered for weeks and months 
by a blanket of snow which looked like a shawl of im- 
pacted wool, white and restful, and the windows of the 
house were spread with frost. But the pigeons were 
always gay, walking on the ledges or crowding on the 
shelves of the lead pipes. He studied them much, but 
he loved them more. His prison was less a prison be- 
cause of them, and during those long five years he 
found himself more in touch with them than with the 
wardens of the prison or with any of his fellow-pris- 
oners. To the former he was respectful, and he gave 
them no trouble at all ; with the latter he had nothing in 
common, for they were criminals, and he — So wild and 
mad with drink and anger was he at the time, that he 


THE PRISONER 135 

had no remembrance, absolutely none, of how Jean 
Gamache lost his life. 

He remembered that they had played cards far into 
the night; that they had quarrelled, then made their 
peace; that the others had left; that they had begun 
gaming and drinking and quarrelling again — and then 
everything was blurred, save for a vague recollection 
that he had won all Gamache’s money and had pock- 
eted it. Afterwards came a blank. 

He waked to find two officers of the law beside him, 
and the body of Jean Gamache, stark and dreadful, a 
few feet away. 

When the officers put their hands upon him he 
shook them off ; when they did it again he would have 
fought them to the death had it not been for his friend 
tall Medallion, the auctioneer, who laid a strong hand 
on his arm and said, “ Steady, Turgeon, steady ! ” and 
he had yielded to the firm friendly pressure. 

Medallion had left no stone unturned to clear him at 
the trial, had himself played detective unceasingly. 
But the hard facts remained, and on a chain of circum- 
stantial evidence Louis Turgeon was convicted of 
manslaughter and sent to prison for ten years. Louis 
himself had said that he did not remember, but he 
could not believe that he had committed the crime. 
Robbery? He shrugged his shoulders at that, he in- 
sisted that his lawyer should not reply to the foolish 
and insulting suggestion. But the evidence went to 
show that Gamache had all the winnings when the 
other members of the party retired, and this very 
money had been found in Louis’s pocket. There was 
only Louis’s word that they had played cards again. 
Anger ? Possibly. Louis could not recall, though he 
knew they had quarrelled. The judge himself, charg- 
5 * 


136 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

ing the jury, said that he never before had seen a 
prisoner so frank, so outwardly honest, but he warned 
them that they must not lose sight of the crime itself, 
the taking of a human life, whereby a woman was 
made a widow and a child fatherless. The jury found 
him guilty. 

With few remarks the judge delivered his sentence, 
and then himself, shaken and pale, left the court-room 
hurriedly, for Louis Turgeon’s father had been his 
friend from boyhood. 

Louis took his sentence calmly, looking the jury 
squarely in the eyes, and when the judge stopped, he 
bowed to him, and then turned to the jury, and said : 

“ Gentlemen, you have ruined my life. You don’t 
know, and I don’t know, who killed the man. You 
have guessed, and I take the penalty. Suppose Fm in- 
nocent — how will you feel when the truth comes out? 
You’ve known me more or less these twenty years, 
and you’ve said, with evidently no more knowledge 
than I’ve got, that I did this horrible thing. I don’t 
know but that one of you did it. But you are safe, and 
I take my ten years ! ” 

He turned from them, and, as he did so, he saw a 
woman looking at him from a corner of the court- 
room, with a strange, wild expression. At the moment 
he saw no more than an excited, bewildered face, but 
afterwards this face came and went before him, flashing 
in and out of dark places in a kind of mockery. 

As he went from the court-room another woman 
made her way to him in spite of the guards. It was 
the Little Chemist’s wife who, years before, had been 
his father’s housekeeper, who knew him when his eyes 
first opened on the world. 


THE PRISONER 


137 

“ My poor Louis ! my poor Louis ! ’’ she said, clasp- 
ing his manacled hands. 

In prison he refused to see all visitors, even Medal- 
lion, the Little Chemist’s wife, and the good Father 
Fabre. Letters, too, he refused to accept and read. 
He had no contact, wished no contact with the outer 
world, but lived his hard, lonely life by himself, silent, 
studious — for now books were a pleasure to him. He 
had entered his prison a wild, excitable, dissipated 
youth, and he had become a mature, brooding man. 
Five years had done the work of twenty. 

The face of the woman who looked at him so 
strangely in the court-room haunted him so that at last 
it became a part of his real life, lived largely at the win- 
dow where he looked out at the pigeons on the roof of 
the hospital. 

She was sorry for me,” he said many a time to him- 
self. He was shaken with misery often, so that he 
rocked to and fro as he sat on his bed, and a warder 
heard him cry out even in the last days of his imprison- 
ment : 

O God, canst thou do everything but speak ! ” 
And again : “ That hour ! the memory of that hour, in 
exchange for my ruined life ! ” 

One day the gaoler came to him and said : “ Mon- 
sieur Convers, you are free. The Governor has cut 
off five years from your sentence.” 

Then he was told that people were waiting without 
— Medallion, the Little Chemist and his wife, and 
others more important. But he would not go to meet 
them, and he stepped into the open world alone at 
dawn the next morning, and looked out upon a still 
sleeping village. Suddenly there stood before him a 


138 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

woman, who had watched by the prison gates all 
night ; and she put out her hand in entreaty, and said 
with a breaking voice : “ You are free at last ! ” 

He remembered her — the woman who had looked 
at him so anxiously and sorrowfully in the court- 
room. 

“ Why did you come to meet me ? ” he asked. 

“ I was sorry for you.’' 

“ But that is no reason.” 

“ I once committed a crime,” she whispered, with 
shrinking bitterness. 

“That’s bad,” he said. “Were you punished?” 
He looked at her keenly, almost fiercely, for a curious 
suspicion shot into his mind. 

She shook her head and answered, no. 

“ That’s worse.” 

“ I let someone else take my crime upon him and be 
punished for it,” she said, an agony in her eyes. 

“ Why was that ? ” 

“ I had a little child,” was her reply. 

“ And the man who was punishi^d instead ? ” 

“ He was alone in the world,” she said. 

A bitter smile crept to his lips, and his face was afire. 
He shut his eyes, and when they opened again dis- 
covery was in them. 

“ I remember you now,” he said. “ I remember 
now I waked and saw you looking at me that night! 
Who was the father of your child ? ” 

“ Jean Gamache,” she replied. “ He ruined me and 
left me to starve.” 

“ I am innocent of his death ! ” he said quietly and 
gladly. 

She nodded. He was silent for a moment. “ The 
child still lives ? ” he asked. She nodded again. “ Well, 


THE PRISONER 


139 

let it be so,” he said. “ But you owe me five years — 
and a good name.” 

“ I wish to God I could give them back ! ” she cried, 
tears streaming down her cheeks. “ It was for my 
child ; he was so young.” 

“ It can’t be helped now,” he said, sighing, and he 
turned away from her. 

Won’t you forgive me? ” she asked bitterly. 

“ Won’t you give me back those five years? ” 

“ If the child did not need me I would give my life,” 
she answered. “ I owe it to you.” 

Her haggard, hunted face made him sorry ; he, too, 
had suffered. 

‘‘ It’s all right,” he answered gently. “ Take care of 
your child.” 

Again he moved away from her, and went down the 
little hill, with a cloud gone from his face that had 
rested there five years. Once he turned to look back. 
The woman was gone, but over the prison a flock of 
pigeons were flying. He took off his hat to them. 

Then he went through the town, looking neither to 
right nor left, and came to his own house, where the 
summer morning was already entering the open win- 
dows, though he had thought to find the place closed 
and dark. 

The Little Chemist’s wife met him in the doorway. 
She could not speak, nor could he, but he kissed her as 
he had done when he went condemned to prison. Then 
he passed on to his own room, and, entering, sat down 
before the open window, and peacefully drank in the 
glory of a new world. But more than once he choked 
down a sob rising in his throat. 


AN UPSET PRICE 


O NCE Secord was as fine a man to look at as you 
would care to see : with a large, intelligent eye, 
a clear, healthy skin, and a full, brown beard. He 
walked with a spring, had the gift of conversation, 
and took life as he found it: never too seriously, yet 
never carelessly. That was before he left the village 
of Pontiac in Quebec to offer himself as a surgeon 
to the American Army. When he came back there 
was a change in him. He was still handsome, but 
something of the spring had gone from his walk, the 
quick light of his eye had given place to a dark, dreamy 
expression, his skin became a little dulled, and his 
talk slower, though not less musical or pleasant. In- 
deed, his conversation was distinctly improved. Pre- 
viously there was an undercurrent of self-conscious- 
ness ; it was all gone now. He talked as one knowing 
his audience. His office became again, as it had 
been before, a rendezvous for the few interesting men 
of the place, including the Avocat, the Cure, the Little 
Chemist, and Medallion. They played chess and 
ecarte for certain hours of certain evenings in the 
week at Secord’s house. Medallion was the first to 
notice that the wife — whom Secord had married soon 
after he came back from the war — occasionally put 
down her work and looked with a curious inquiring 
expression at her husband as he talked. It struck 


AN UPSET PRICE 141 

Medallion that she was puzzled by some change in 
Secord. 

Secord was a brilliant surgeon, and with the knife 
in his hand, or beside a sick bed, was admirable. His 
intuitive perception, so necessary in a physician, was 
very fine : he appeared to get at the core of a patient’s 
trouble, and to decide upon necessary action with in- 
stant and absolute confidence. Some delicate opera- 
tion performed by him was recorded and praised in 
the Lancet, and he was offered a responsible post in 
a medical college and, at the same time, the good-will 
of a valuable practice. He declined both, to the last- 
ing astonishment, yet personal joy, of the Cure and the 
Avocat ; but, as time went on, not so much to the sur- 
prise of the Little Chemist and Medallion. After three 
years, the sleepy Little Chemist waked up suddenly 
in his chair one day and said : “ Parbleu! God bless 
me ! ” (he loved to mix his native language with Eng- 
lish) got up and went over to Secord’s office, adjusted 
his glasses, looked at Secord closely, caught his hand 
with both of his own, shook it with shy abruptness, 
came back to his shop, sat down, and said : “ God bless 
my soul ! Regarded qal ” 

Medallion made his discovery sooner. Watching 
closely he had seen a pronounced deliberation infused 
through all Secord’s indolence of manner, and noticed 
that often before doing anything the big eyes debated 
steadfastly, and the long, slender fingers ran down the 
beard softly. At times there was a deep meditative- 
ness in the eye ; again a dusky fire. But there was a 
certain charm through it all — a languid precision, a 
slumbering look in the face, a vague undercurrent in 
the voice, a fantastical flavour to the thought. The 
change had come so gradually that only Medallion 


142 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

and the wife had a real conception of how great it was. 
Medallion had studied Secord from every standpoint. 
At the very first he wondered if there was a woman in 
it. Much thinking on a woman, whose influence on 
his life was evil or disturbing, might account some- 
what for the change in Secord. But, seeing how fond 
the man was of his wife. Medallion gave up that idea. 
It was not liquor, for Secord never touched it. One 
day, however, when Medallion was selling the furniture 
of a house, he put up a feather bed, and, as was his 
custom — for he was a whimsical fellow — let his hu- 
mour have play. He used many metaphors as to the 
virtue of the bed, crowning them with the statement 
that you slept in it dreaming as delicious dreams as 

though you had eaten poppy, or mandragora, or 

He stopped short, said “ By heaven, that’s it ! ” knocked 
the bed down instantly, and was an utter failure for 
the rest of the day. 

The wife was longer in discovering the truth, but a 
certain morning as her husband lay sleeping after an 
all-night sitting with a patient, she saw lying beside 
him — it had dropped from his waistcoat pocket — a little 
bottle full of a dark liquid. She knew that he always 
carried his medicine-phials in a pocket-case. She got 
the case, and saw that none was missing. She noticed 
that the cork of the phial was well-worn. She took 
it out and smelled the liquid. Then she understood. 
She waited and watched. She saw him after he waked 
look watchfully round, quietly take a wineglass, and 
let the liquid come drop by drop into it from the point 
of his forefinger. Henceforth she read with under- 
standing the changes in his manner, and saw behind 
the mingled abstraction and fanciful meditation of his 
talk. 


AN UPSET PRICE 


143 


She had not yet made up her mind what to do. She 
saw that he hid it from her assiduously. He did so 
more because he wished not to pain her than from 
furtiveness. By nature he was open and brave, and 
had always had a reputation for plainness and sincerity. 
She was in no sense his equal in intelligence or judg- 
ment, nor even in instinct. She was a woman of more 
impulse and constitutional good-nature than depth. 
It is probable that he knew that, and refrained from 
letting her into the knowledge of this vice, contracted 
in the war when, seriously ill, he was able to drag him- 
self about from patient to patient only by the help of 
opium. He was alive to his position and its conse- 
quences, and faced it. He had no children, and he was 
glad of this for one reason. He could do nothing now 
without the drug ; it was as necessary as light to him. 
The little bottle had been his friend so long, that, with 
his finger on its smooth-edged cork, it was as though 
he held the tap of life. 

The Little Chemist and Medallion kept the thing to 
themselves, but they understood each other in the mat- 
ter, and wondered what they could do to cure him. 
The Little Chemist only shrank back, and said : “ No, 
no, pardon, my friend ! ” when Medallion suggested 
that he should speak to Secord. But the Little 
Chemist was greatly concerned — for had not Secord 
saved his beloved wife by a clever operation ? and was 
it not her custom to devote a certain hour every week 
to the welfare of Secord’s soul and body, before the 
shrine of the Virgin ? Her husband told her now that 
Secord was in trouble, and though he was far from 
being devout himself, he had a shy faith in the great 
sincerity of his wife. She did her best, and increased 
her offerings of flowers to the shrine ; she, also, in her 


144 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

simplicity, sent Secord’s wife little jars of jam to com- 
fort him. 

One evening the little coterie met by arrangement at 
the house of Secord. After waiting an hour or two for 
Secord, who had been called away to a critical case, the 
Avocat and the Cure went home, leaving polite old- 
fashioned messages for their absent host ; but the Little 
Chemist and Medallion remained. For a time Mrs. 
Secord remained with them, then retired, begging 
them to wait for Secord, who, she knew, would be 
grateful if they stayed. The Little Chemist, with timid 
courtesy, showed her out of the room, then came back 
and sat down. They were very silent. The Little 
Chemist took his glasses a half dozen times, wiped 
them, and put them back. Then suddenly turned on 
Medallion. “ You mean to speak to-night? ” 

“ Yes, that^s what I intend, just here.'’ 

Regardez ga — well, well ! ” 

Medallion never smoked harder than he did then. 
The Little Chemist looked at him nervously again and 
again, listened towards the door, fingered with his 
tumbler, and at last hearing the sound of sleigh-bells, 
suddenly came to his feet, and said : “ Voilhy I will go 
to my wife.” And catching up his cap, and forgetting 
his overcoat, he trotted away in a frightened manner to 
his home. 

What Medallion did or said to Secord that night 
neither ever told. But it must have been a singular 
scene, for when the humourist pleads or prays there is 
no pathos like it ; and certainly Medallion’s eyes were 
red when he rapped up the Little Chemist at dawn, 
caught him by the shoulders, turned him round several 
times, thumped him on the back, and called him a 
bully old boy; and then, seeing the old wife in her 


AN UPSET PRICE 


145 


quaint padded nightgown, suddenly hugged her, threw 
himself into a chair and almost shouted for a cup of 
coffee. 

At the same time Mrs. Secord was alternately crying 
and laughing in her husband’s arms, and he was saying 
to her : “ I’ll make a fight for it, Lesley, a big fight ; but 
you must be patient, for I expect I’ll be a devil some- 
times without it. Why, I’ve eaten a drachm a day of 
the stuff, or drunk its equivalent in the tincture. 
No, never mind praying ; be a brick and fight with me : 
that’s the game, my girl.” 

He did make a fight for it, such an one as few men 
have made and come out safely. For those who dwell 
in the Pit never suffer as do they who struggle with 
this appetite. He was too wise to give it up all at 
once. He diminished the dose gradually, but still 
very perceptibly. As it was it made a marked change 
in him. The necessary effort of the will gave a kind 
of hard coldness to his face, and he used to walk his 
garden for hours at night in conflict with his enemy. 
His nerves were uncertain, but, strange to say, when 
(it was not often) any serious case of illness came under 
his hands, he was somehow able to pull himself to- 
gether and do his task gallantly enough. But he had 
had no important surgical case since he began his 
cure. In his heart he lived in fear of one ; for he was 
not quite sure of himself. In spite of effort to the 
contrary he became irritable, and his old pleasant 
fantasies changed to gloomy and bizarre imaginings. 

The wife never knew what it cost her husband thus, 
day by day, to take a foe by the throat and hold him in 
check. She did not guess that he knew if he dropped 
back even once he could not regain himself : this was 
his idiosyncrasy. He did not find her a great help to 


146 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

him in his trouble. She was aflectionate, but she had 
not much penetration even where he was concerned, 
and she did not grasp how much was at stake. She 
thought indeed that he should be able to give it up all 
at once. He was tender with her, but he wished often 
that she could understand him without explanation on 
his part. Many a time he took out the little bottle 
with a reckless hand, but conquered himself. He got 
most help, perhaps, from the honest, cheerful eye of 
Medallion and the stumbling, timorous affection of 
the Little Chemist. They were perfectly disinterested 
friends — his wife at times made him aware that he had 
done her a wrong, for he had married her with this 
appetite on him. He did not defend himself, but he 
wished she would — even if she had to act it — make him 
believe in himself more. One morning against his will 
he was irritable with her, and she said something that 
burnt like caustic. He smiled ironically and pushed 
his newspaper over to her, pointing to a paragraph. 
It was the announcement that an old admirer of hers 
(whom she had passed by for her husband) had come 
into a fortune. “ Perhaps you’ve made a mistake,” 
he said. 

She answered nothing, but the look she gave was 
unfortunate for both. He muffled his mouth in his 
long, silken beard as if to smother what he felt impelled 
to say, then suddenly rose and left the table. 

At this time he had reduced his dose of the drug to 
eight drops twice a day. With a grim courage he 
resolved to make it five all at once. He did so, and 
held to it. Medallion was much with him in these 
days. One morning in the Spring he got up, went out 
in his garden, drew in the fresh, sweet air with a great 
gulp, picked some lovely crab-apple blossoms, and. 


AN UPSET PRICE 


147 


with a strange glowing look in his eyes, came in to 
his wife, put them into her hands, and kissed her. It 
was the anniversary of their wedding-day. Then, 
without a word, he took from his pocket the little phial 
that he had carried so long, rolled it for an instant in 
his palm, felt its worn, discoloured cork musingly, and 
threw it out of the window. 

“ Now, my dear,” he whispered, “ we will be happy 
again.” 

He held to his determination with a stern anxiety. 
He took a month’s vacation, and came back better. He 
was not so happy as he hoped to be ; yet he would not 
whisper to himself the reason why. He felt that some- 
thing had failed him somewhere. 

One day a man came riding swiftly up to his door to 
say that his wife’s father had met with a bad accident 
in his great mill. Secord told his wife. A peculiar 
troubled look came into his face as he glanced carefully 
over his instruments and through his medicine case. 

God ! I must do it alone,” he said. 

The old man’s injury was a dangerous one : a skilful 
operation was necessary. As Secord stood beside the 
sufferer, he felt his nerves suddenly go — just as they 
did in the War before he first took the drug. His wife 
was in the next room, — he could hear her ; he wished 
she would make no sound at all. Unless this opera- 
tion was performed successfully the sufferer would die 
— he might die anyhow. Secord tried to gather him- 
self up to his task, but he felt it was of no use. A 
month later when he was more recovered physically 
he would be able to perform the operation, but the old 
man was dying now, while he stood helplessly stroking 
his big brown beard. He took up his pocket medicine- 
case, and went out where his wife was. 


148 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


Excited and tearful, she started up to meet him, 
painfully inquiring. “ Can you save him ? ” she said. 
“ Oh, James, what is the matter? You are trembling.’’ 

“ It’s just this way, Lesley : my nerve is broken ; I 
can’t perform the operation as I am, and he will die 
in an hour if I don’t.” 

She caught him by the arm. “ Can you not be 
strong? You have a will. Will you not try to save 
my father, James? Is there no way? ” 

“ Yes, there is one way.” he said. He opened the 
pocket-case and took out a phial of laudanum. “ This 
is the way. I can pull myself together with it. It will 
save his life.” There was a dogged look in his face. 

“ Well? well? ” she said. “ Oh, my dear father! — 
will you not keep him here ? ” 

A peculiar cold smile hovered about his lips. But 
there is danger to me in this . . . and remember, 

he is very old ! ” 

“ Oh,” she cried, “ how can you be so shocking, so 
cruel I ” She rocked herself to and fro. “ If it will 
save him — and you need not take it again, ever I ” 

“ But, I tell you ” ' 

“ Do you not hear him — he is dying ! ” She was 
mad with grief ; she hardly knew what she said. 

Without a word he dropped the tincture swiftly in a 
wineglass of water, drank it off, shivered, drew him- 
self up with a start, gave a sigh as if some huge struggle 
was over, and went in to where the old man was. 
Three hours after he told his wife that her father was 
safe. 

When, after a hasty kiss, she left him and went into 
the room of sickness, and the door closed after her, 
standing where she had left him he laughed a hard 
crackling laugh, and said between his teeth — 


AN UPSET PRICE 


149 


“ An upset price ! ” 

Then he poured out another portion of the dark 
tincture — the largest he had ever taken — and tossed 
it off. 

That night he might have been seen feeling about 
the grass in a moon-lit garden. At last he put some- 
thing in his pocket with a quick, harsh chuckle of 
satisfaction. It was a little black bottle with a well- 
worn cork. 


A FRAGMENT OF LIVES 



HEY met at last, Dubarre and Villiard, the man 


A who had stolen from him the woman he loved. 
Both had wronged the woman, but Villiard most, for 
he had let her die because of jealousy. 

They were now in a room alone in the forest of St. 
Hyacinth. Both were quiet, and both knew that the 
end of their hatred was near. 

Going to a cupboard Dubarre brought out four 
glasses and put them on the table. Then from two 
bottles he poured out what looked like red wine, two 
glasses from each bottle. Putting the bottles back he 
returned to the table. 

“ Do you dare to drink with me? ” Dubarre asked, 
nodding towards the glasses. “ Two of the glasses 
have poison in them, two have good red wine only. 
We will move them about and then drink. Both may 
die, or only one of us.’’ 

Villiard looked at the other with contracting, ques- 
tioning eyes. 

“You would play that game with me?” he asked 
in a mechanical voice. 

“ It would give me great pleasure.” The voice had 
a strange, ironical tone. “ It is a grand sport — as one 
would take a run at a crevasse and clear it, or fall. If 
we both fall, we are in good company; if you fall, I 
have the greater joy of escape ; if I fall, you have the 
same joy.” 


A FRAGMENT OF LIVES 


151 

“ I am ready,” was the answer. “ But let us eat 
first.” 

A great fire burned in the chimney, for the night 
was cool. It filled the room with a gracious heat and 
with huge, comfortable shadows. Here and there on 
the wall a tin cup flashed back the radiance of the fire, 
the barrel of a gun glistened soberly along a rafter, 
and the long, wiry hair of an otter-skin in the corner 
sent out little needles of light. Upon the fire a pot 
was simmering, and a good savour came from it. A 
wind went lilting by outside the hut in tune with the 
singing of the kettle. The ticking of a huge, old- 
fashioned repeating-watch on the wall was in unison 
with these. 

Dubarre rose from the table, threw himself upon the 
little pile of otter-skins, and lay watching Villiard and 
mechanically studying the little room. 

Villiard took the four glasses filled with the wine 
and laid them on a shelf against the wall, then began 
to put the table in order for their supper and to take 
the pot from the fire. 

Dubarre noticed that just above where the glasses 
stood on the shelf a crucifix was hanging, and that 
red crystal sparkled in the hands and feet where the 
nails should be driven in. There was a painful humour 
in the .association. He smiled, then turned his head 
away, for old memories flashed through his brain — 
he had been an acolyte once : he had served at the altar. 

Suddenly Dubarre rose, took the glasses from the 
shelf and placed them in the middle of the table — the 
death’s head for the feast. 

As they sat down to eat, the eyes of both men un- 
consciously wandered to the crucifix, attracted by the 
red sparkle of the rubies. They drank water with the 


152 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


well-cooked meat of the wapiti, though red wine faced 
them on the table. Each ate heartily; as though a 
long day were before them and not the shadow of the 
Long Night. There was no speech save that of the 
usual courtesies of the table. The fire, and the wind, 
and the watch seemed the only living things besides 
themselves, perched there between heaven and earth. 

At length the meal was finished, and the two turned 
in their chairs towards the fire. There was no other 
light in the room, and on the faces of the two, still and 
cold, the flame played as upon marble. 

“ When ? said Dubarre at last. 

“ Not yet,’^ was the quiet reply. 

“ I was thinking of my first theft — an apple from my 
brother’s plate,” said Dubarre with a dry smile. 
“ You?” 

“ I, of my first lie.” 

“ That apple was the sweetest fruit I ever tasted.” 

“ And I took the penalty of the lie, but I had no 
sorrow.” 

Again there was silence. 

“ Now? ” asked Villiard, after an hour had passed. 

I am ready.” 

They came to the table. 

“ Shall we bind our eyes ? ” asked Dubarre. “ I 
do not know the glasses that hold the poison.” 

“ Nor I the bottles that held it. I will turn my back, 
and do you change about the glasses.” 

Villiard turned his face towards the timepiece on the 
wall. As he did so it began to strike — a clear, silvery 
chime : One ! two ! three ” 

Before it had finished striking both men were facing 
the glasses again. 

“ Take one,” said Dubarre. 


A FRAGMENT OF LIVES 


53 


Villiard took the one nearest himself. Dubarre took 
one also. Without a word they lifted the glasses and 
drank. 

“ Again,” said Dubarre. 

“ You choose,” responded Villiard. 

Dubarre lifted the one nearest himself, and Villiard 
picked up the other. Raising their glasses again, they 
bowed to each other and drank. 

The watch struck twelve, and stopped its silvery 
chiming. 

They both sat down, looking at each other, the light 
of an enormous chance in their eyes, the tragedy of a 
great stake in their clenched hands ; but the deeper, 
intenser power was in the face of Dubarre, the ex- 
plorer. 

There was more than power ; malice drew down the 
brows and curled the sensitive upper lip. Each man 
watched the other for knowledge of his own fate. The 
glasses lay straggling along the table, emptied of death 
and life. 

All at once a horrible pallor spread over the face of 
Villiard, and his head jerked forward. He grasped 
the table with both hands, twitching and trembling. 
His eyes stared wildly at Dubarre, to whose face the 
flush of wine had come, whose look was now mali- 
ciously triumphant. 

Villiard had drunk both glasses of the poison ! 

“ I win ! ” Dubarre stood up. Then, leaning over 
the table towards the dying man, he added : You let 
her die — well! Would you know the truth? She 
loved you — always I ” 

Villiard gasped, and his look wandered vaguely 
along the opposite wall. 

Dubarre went on. “ I played the game with you 


154 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


honestly, because — because it was the greatest man 
could play. And I, too, sinned against her. Now 
die ! She loved you — murderer ! ” 

The man’s look still wandered distractedly along the 
wall. The sweat of death was on his face; his lips 
were moving spasmodically. 

Suddenly his look became fixed ; he found voice. 

“ Pardon — Jesu! ” he said, and stiffened where he 
sat. 

His eyes were fixed on the jewelled crucifix. Du- 
barre snatched it from the wall, and hastening to him 
held it to his lips : but the warm sparkle of the rubies 
fell on eyes that were cold as frosted glass. Dubarre 
saw that he was dead. 

“ Because the woman loved him ! ” he said, gazing 
curiously at the dead man. 

He turned, went to the door and opened it, for his 
breath choked him. 

All was still on the wooded heights and in the wide 
valley. 

Because the woman loved him he repented,” said 
Dubarre again with a half-cynical gentleness as he 
placed the crucifix on the dead man’s breast. 


THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 



HE man who died at Alma had a Kilkenny 


± brogue that you could cut with a knife, but he 
was called Kilquhanity, a name as Scotch as Mac- 
Gregor. Kilquhanity was a retired soldier, on pension, 
and Pontiac was a place of peace and poverty. The 
only gentry were the Cure, the Avocat, and the young 
Seigneur, but of the three the only one with a private 
income was the young Seigneur. 

What should such a common man as Kilquhanity 
do with a private income! It seemed almost sus- 
picious, instead of creditable, to the minds of the simple 
folk at Pontiac; for they were French, and poor and 
laborious, and Kilquhanity drew his pension from the 
headquarters of the English Government, which they 
only knew by legends wafted to them over great tracts 
of country from the city of Quebec. 

When Kilquhanity first came with his wife, it was 
without introductions from anywhere — unlike every- 
body else in Pontiac, whose family history could be 
instantly reduced to an exact record by the Cure. He 
had a smattering of French, which he turned off with 
oily brusqueness, he was not close-mouthed, he 
talked freely of events in his past life, and he told some 
really wonderful tales of his experiences in the British 
army. He was no braggart, however, and his one 
great story which gave him the nickname by which 
he was called at Pontiac, was told far more in a spirit 


156 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

of laughter at himself than in praise of his own part 
in the incident. 

The first time he told the story was in the house of 
Medallion the auctioneer. 

“ Aw the night it was ! ” said Kilquhanity, after a 
pause, blowing a cloud of tobacco smoke into the air, 
“ the night it was, me darlins ! Bitther cowld in that 
Roosian counthry, though but late summer, and noth- 
in’ to ate but a lump of bread, no bigger than a dicky- 
bird’s skull; nothin’ to drink but wather. Turrible! 
turrible! and for clothes to wear — Mother of Moses! 
that was a bad day for clothes I We got betune no bar- 
rick quilts that night. No stockin’ had I insoide me 
boots, no shirt had I but a harse’s quilt sewed an to 
me; no heart I had insoide me body; nothin’ at all but 
duty an’ shtandin’ to orders, me b’ys! 

“ Says Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick to me, ^ Kilqu- 
hanity,’ says he, ‘ there’s betther places than River 
Alma to live by,’ says he. ‘ Faith! an’ by the Liffey I 
wish I was this moment ’ — Lififey’s in ould Ireland, 
Frenchies! ‘But, Kilquhanity,’ says he, ‘faith, an’ 
it’s the Liffey we’ll never see again, an’ put that in yer 
pipe an’ smoke it! ’ And thrue for him. 

“ But that night, aw that night! Ivery bone in me 
body was achin’, and shure me heart was achin’ too, 
for the poor b’ys that were fightin’ hard an’ gettin’ 
little for it. Bitther cowld it was, aw, bitther cowld ! 
and the b’ys droppin’ down, droppin’, droppin’, drop- 
pin’, wid the Roosian bullets in thim ! 

“ ‘ Kilquhanity,’ says Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick to 
me, ‘ it’s this shtandin’ still, while we do be droppin’, 
droppin’, that girds the soul av yer.’ Aw! the sight it 
was, the sight it was ! The b’ys of the rigimint shtand- 
in’ shoulder to shoulder, an’ the faces av ’m blue wid 


THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 157 


powder, an’ red wid blood, an’ the bits o’ b’ys droppin’ 
round me loike twigs of an ould tree in a shtorm. Just 
a cry an’ a bit av a gurgle thro’ the teeth, an’ divil the 
wan o’ thim would see the Liffey side anny more. 

“ ‘ The Roosians are chargin’ ! ’ shouts Sergeant- 
Major Kilpatrick. ‘ The Roosians are chargin’ — here 
they come! ’ Shtandin’ besoide me was a bit of a lump 
of a b’y, as foine a lad as ever shtood in the boots of 
me rigimint — aw! the look of his face was the look o’ 
the dead. ' The Roosians are cornin’ ! they’re charg- 
in’! ’ says Sergeant-Major Kilpatrick, and the bit av a 
b’y, that had nothin’ to eat all day, throws down his gun 
and turns round to run. Eighteen years old he was, only 
eighteen! just a straight slip of a lad from Malahide. 
‘ Hould on! Teddie,’ says I, ‘ hould on! How’ll yer 
face yer mother if yer turn yer back on the inimy of yer 
counthry? ’ The b’y looks me in the eyes long enough 
to wink three times, picks up his gun, an’ shtood loike 
a rock, he did, till the Roosians charged us, roared on 
us, an’ I saw me slip of a b’y go down under the sabre 
of a damned Cossack! 'Mother!’ I heard him say, 
‘Mother!’ an’ that’s all I heard him say — and the 
mother waitin’ away aff there by the Lifley soide! Aw! 
wurra! wurra! the b’ys go down to battle and the 
mothers wait at home. Some of the b’ys came back, 
but the most of thim shtay where the battle laves ’em. 
Wurra! wurra! many’s the b’y wint down that day by 
Alma River, an’ niver come back! 

“ There I was shtandin’, when hell broke loose on 
the b’ys of me rigimint, and divil the wan o’ me knows 
if I killed a Roosian that day or not. But Sergeant- 
Major Kilpatrick — a bit of a liar was the Sergeant- 
Major — says he, ‘ It was tin ye killed, Kilquhanity.’ 
He says that to me the noight that I left the rigimint 


158 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

for ever, and all the b’ys shtandin’ round and liftin' 
glasses an’ saying, ‘ Kilquhanity! Kilquhanity! Kilqu- 
hanity! ’ as if it was sugar and honey in their mouths. 
Aw ! the sound of it ! ‘ Kilquhanity,’ says he, ‘ it was 

tin ye killed ! ’ but aw, b’ys, the Sergeant-Major was 
an awful liar. If he could be doin’ annybody anny 
good by lyin’, shure he would be lyin’ all the time. 

“ But it’s little I know how many I killed, for I was 
killed meself that day. A Roosian sabre claved the 
shoulder and neck av me, an’ down I wint, and over 
me trampled a squadron of Roosian harses, an’ I 
stopped thinkin! Aw! so aisy, so aisy, I slipped away 
out av the fight. The shriekin’ and the roarin’ kept 
dwindlin’ and dwindlin’, an’ I dropped all into a foine 
shlape, so quiet, so aisy! An’ I thought that slip av a 
lad from the Liffey soide was houlding me hand, and 
sayin’ ‘ Mother! Mother! ’ and we both wint ashlape; 
an’ the b’ys of the rigimint when Alma was over, they 
said to each other, the b’ys they said, ‘ Kilquhanity’s 
dead ! ’ An’ the trinches was dug, an’ all we foine dead 
b’ys was laid in long rows loike candles in the trinches. 
An’ I was laid in among thim, and Sergeant-Major 
Kilpatrick shtandin’ there an’ looking at me an’ sayin’, 
^ Poor b’y! poor b’y! ’ 

“ But when they threw another man on tap of me, I 
waked up out o’ that beautiful shlape, and give him a 
kick. ‘ Yer not polite,’ says I to mesilf. Shure, I 
couldn’t shpake — there was no strength in me. An’ 
they threw another man on, an’ I kicked again, and the 
Sergeant-Major he sees it, an’ shouts out : ‘ Kilqu- 
hanity’s leg is kickin’ ! ’ says he. An’ they pulled aff 
the two poor divils that had been thrown o’ tap o’ me, 
and the Sergeant-Major lifts me head, an’ he says, 
^ Yer not killed, Kilquhanity? ’ says he. 


THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 159 

Divil a word could I shpake, but I winked at him, 
and Captain Masham shtandin’ by whips out a flask. 
‘ Put that betune his teeth,’ says he. Whin I got it 
there, trust me fur not lettin’ it go. An’ the Sergeant- 
Major says to me, ‘ I have hopes of you, Kilquhanity, 
when you do be drinkin’ loike that ! ’ 

“ An’ a foine healthy corpse I am ; an’ a foine thirsty 
healthy corpse I am ! ” 

A dozen hands stretched out to give Kilquhanity 
a drink, for even the best story-teller of Pontiac could 
not have told his tale so well. 

Yet the success achieved by Kilquhanity at such 
moments was discounted through long months of 
mingled suspicion and doubtful tolerance. Although 
both he and his wife were Catholics (so they said, and 
so it seemed), Kilquhanity never went to confession 
or took the Blessed Sacrament. The Cure spoke to 
Kilquhanity’s wife about it, and she said she could do 
nothing with her husband. Her tongue once loosed, 
she spoke freely, and what she said was little to the 
credit of Kilquhanity. Not that she could urge any 
horrible things against him; but she railed at minor 
faults till the Cure dismissed her with some good ad- 
vice upon wives rehearsing their husband’s faults, even 
to the parish priest. 

Mrs. Kilquhanity could not get the Cure to listen 
to her, but she was more successful elsewhere. One 
day she came to get Kilquhanity’s pension, which was 
sent every three months through M. Garon, the Avo- 
cat. After she had handed over the receipt prepared 
beforehand by Kilquhanity, she replied to M. Garon’s 
inquiry concerning her husband, in these words : 

Misther Garon, sir, such a man it is — enough to 
break the heart of anny woman. And the timper of 
6 


i6o BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


him — Misther Garon, the timper of him that awfuL 
awful ! No conshideration, and that ugly-hearted, got 
whin a soldier b’y ! The things he does — my, my, the 
things he does ! She threw up her hands with an 
air of distraction. 

“ Well, and what does he do, Madame? ” asked the 
Avocat simply. 

“An’ what he says, too — the awful of it! Ah, the 
bad sour heart in him ! What’s he lyin’ in his bed for 
now — an’ the New Year cornin’ on, whin we ought to 
be praisin’ God an’ enjoyin’ each other’s company in 
this blessed wurruld? What’s he lying betune the 
quilts now fur, but by token of the bad heart in him! 
It’s a wicked cowld he has, an’ how did he come by it? 
I’ll tell ye, Misther Garon. So wild was he, yesterday 
it was a week, so black mad wid somethin’ I’d said to 
him and somethin’ that shlipped from me hand at his 
head, that he turns his back on me, throws opin the 
dure, shteps out into the shnow, and shtandin’ there 
alone he curses the wide wurruld — oh, dear Misther 
Garon, he cursed the wide wurruld, shtandin’ there in 
the snow. God forgive the black heart of him, 
shtandin’ out there cursin’ the wide wurruld ! ” 

The Avocat looked at the Sergeant’s wife musingly, 
the fingers of his hands tapping together, but he did 
not speak : he was becoming wiser all in a moment as 
to the ways of women. 

“ An’ now, he’s in bed, the shtrappin’ blasphemer, 
fur the cowld he got shtandin’ there in the snow cursin’ 
the wide wurruld. Ah, Misther Garon, pity a poor 
woman that has to live wid the loikes o’ that! ” 

The Avocat still did not speak. He turned his face 
away and looked out of the window, where his eyes 
could see the little house on the hill, which to-day had 


THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA i6i 


the Union Jack flying, in honour of some battle or 
some victory, dear to Kilquhanity’s heart. It looked 
peaceful enough, the little house lying there in the 
waste of snow, banked up with earth, and sheltered 
on the northwest by a little grove of pines. At 
last M. Garon rose, and lifting himself up and down 
on his toes as if about to deliver a legal opinion, 
he coughed slightly, and then said in a dry little 
voice : 

“ Madame, I shall have pleasure in calling on your 
husband. You have not seen the matter in the true 
light. Madame, I bid you good-day! ” 

That night the Avocat, true to his promise, called on 
Sergeant Kilquhanity. Kilquhanity was alone in the 
house. His wife had gone to the village for the Little 
Chemist. She had been roused at last to the serious 
nature of Kilquhanity’s illness. 

M. Garon knocked. There was no answer. He 
knocked again more loudly, and still no answer. He 
opened the door and entered into a clean, warm living 
room, so hot that the heat came to him in waves buffet- 
ing his face. Dining, sitting, and drawing room, it 
was also a sort of winter kitchen; and side by side with 
relics of Kilquhanity’s soldier-life were clean, bright 
tins, black saucepans, strings of dried fruit, and well- 
cured hams. Certainly the place had the air of home; 
it spoke for the absent termagant. 

M. Garon looked round and saw a half-opened door, 
through which presefftly came a voice speaking in a 
laboured whisper. The Avocat knocked gently at the 
door. “ May I come in, Sergeant? ” he asked, and 
entered. There was no light in the room, but the fire 
in the kitchen stove threw a glow over the bed where 


i 62 born with a golden spoon 


the sick man lay. The big hands of the soldier moved 
restlessly on the quilt. 

“ Aw, it’s the koind av ye! ” said Kilquhanity, with 
difficulty, out of the half shadows. 

The Avocat took one burning hand in both of his, 
held it for a moment, and pressed it two or three times. 
He did not know what to say. 

“ We must have a light,” said he at last, and taking 
a candle from a shelf he lighted it at the stove and 
came into the bedroom again. This time he was 
startled. Even in this short illness, Kilquhanity’s flesh 
had dropped away from him, leaving him but a bundle 
of bones, on which the skin quivered with fever. Every 
word the sick man tried to speak cut his chest like a 
knife, and his eyes half started from his head with the 
agony of it. The Avocat’s heart sank within him, for 
he saw that a life was hanging in the balance. Not 
knowing what to do, he tucked in the bedclothes 
gently. 

“ I do be thinkin’,” said the strained, whispering 
voice — “ I do be thinkin’ I could shmoke 1 ” 

The Avocat looked round the room, saw the pipe on 
the window, and cutting some tobacco from a “ plug,” 
he tenderly filled the old black corn-cob. Then he put 
the stem in Kilquhanity’s mouth and held the candle 
to the bowl. Kilquhanity smiled, drew a long breath, 
and blew out a cloud of thick smoke. For a moment 
he puffed vigorously, then, all at once, the pleasure of 
it seemed to die away, and presently the bowl dropped 
down on his chin. M. Garon lifted it away. Kilqu- 
hanity did not speak, but kept saying something over 
and over again to himself, looking beyond M. Garon 
abstractedly. 

At that moment the front door of the house opened. 


THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 163 

and presently a shrill voice came through the door. 
“ Shmokin/ shmokin’, are ye, Kilquhanity? As soon 
as me back’s turned, it’s playin’ the fool — ^ — ” She 
stopped short, seeing the Avocat. 

“ Beggin’ yer pardon, Misther Garon,” she said, “ I 
thought it was only Kilquhanity here, an’ he wid no 
more sense than a babby.” 

Kilquhanity’s eyes closed, and he buried one side of 
his head in the pillow, that her shrill voice should not 
pierce his ears. 

“ The Little Chemist ’ll be cornin’ in a minit, dear 
Misther Garon,” said the wife presently, and she began 
to fuss with the bedclothes and to be nervously and 
uselessly busy. 

“ Aw, lave thim alone, darlin’,” whispered Kilqu- 
hanity, tossing. Her officiousness seemed to hurt him 
more than the pain in his chest. 

M. Garon did not wait for the Little Chemist to ar- 
rive, but after pressing the Sergeant s hand he left the 
house and went straight to the house of the Cure, and 
told him in what condition was the black sheep of his 
flock. 

When Monsieur Garon returned to his own home he 
found a visitor in his library. It was a woman, and be- 
tween forty and fifty years of age, who rose slowly to 
her feet as the Avocat entered, and, without prelimi- 
nary, put into his hands a document. 

“ That is who I am,” she said. “ Mary Muddock 
that was, Mary Kilquhanity that is.” 

The Avocat held in his hands the marriage lines of 
Matthew Kilquhanity of the parish of Malahide and 
Mary Muddock of the parish of St. Giles, London. 
The Avocat was completely taken back. He blew ner- 
vously through his pale fingers, raised himself up and 


i 64 born with a GOLDEN SPOON 


down on his toes, and grew pale through suppressed 
excitement. He examined the certificate carefully, 
though from the first he had no doubt of its accuracy 
and correctness. 

“ Well! ” said the woman, with a hard look in her 
face and a hard note in her voice. “ Well! ” 

The Avocat looked at her musingly for a moment. 
All at once there had been unfolded to him Kilqu- 
hanity’s story. In his younger days Kilquhanity had 
married this woman with a face of tin and a heart of 
leather. It needed no confession from Kilquhanity’s 
own lips to explain by what hard paths he had come to 
the reckless hour when, at Blackpool, he had left her for 
ever, as he thought. In the flush of his criminal free- 
dom he had married again — with the woman who 
shared his home on the little hillside, behind the Parish 
Church, she believing him a widower. Mary Mud- 
dock, with the stupidity of her class, had never gone 
to the right quarters to discover his whereabouts until 
a year before this day when she stood in the Avo- 
cat’s library. At last, through the War Office, she 
had found the whereabouts of her missing Matthew. 
She had gathered her little savings together, and, 
after due preparation, had sailed away to Canada to 
find the soldier boy whom she had never given 
anything but bad hours in all the days of his life 
with her. 

“ Well,” said the woman, “ you’re a lawyer — have 
you nothing to say ? You pay his pension — next time 
you’ll pay it to me. I’ll teach him to leave me and my 
kid and go off with an Irish cook! ” 

The Avocat looked her steadily in the eyes, and 
then delivered the strongest blow that was possible 
from the opposite side of the case. Madame,” said 


THE MAN THAT DIED AT ALMA 165 

he, “ Madame, I regret to inform you that Matthew 
Kilquhanity is dying.” 

“Dying, is he?” said the woman with a sudden 
change of voice and manner, but her whine did not 
ring true. “ The poor darlin’ ! and only that Irish hag 
to care for him ! Has he made a will ? ” she added 
eagerly. 

Kilquhanity had made no will, and the little house 
on the hillside, and all that he had, belonged to this 
woman who had spoiled the first part of his life, and 
had come now to spoil the last part. 

An hour later the Avocat, the Cure, and the two 
women stood in the chief room of the little house on 
the hillside. The door was shut between the two 
rooms, and the Little Chemist was with Kilquhanity. 
The Cure’s hand was on the arm of the first wife and 
the Avocat’s upon the arm of the second. The two 
women were glaring eye to eye, having just finished 
as fine a torrent of abuse of each other and of Kilqu- 
hanity as can be imagined. Kilquhanity himself, with 
the sorrow of death upon him, though he knew it not, 
had listened to the brawl, his chickens come home to 
roost at last. The first Mrs. Kilquhanity had sworn, 
with an oath that took no account of the Cure’s pres- 
ence, that not a stick nor a stone nor a rag nor a penny 
should that Irish slattern have of Matthew Kilqu- 
hanity’s ! 

The Cure and the Avocat had quieted them at last, 
and the Cure spoke sternly now to both women: 

“ In the presence of death,” said he, “ have done with 
your sinful clatter. Stop quarrelling over a dying 
man. Let him go in peace! Let him go in peace! 
If I hear one word more,” he added sternly, “ I will 


i66 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


turn you both out of the house into the night. I will 
have the man die in peace ! ” 

Opening the door of the bedroom, the Cure went in 
and shut the door, bolting it quietly behind him. The 
Little Chemist sat by the bedside, and Kilquhanity lay 
as still as a babe upon the bed. His eyes were half 
closed, for the Little Chemist had given him an opiate 
to quiet the terrible pain. 

The Cure saw that the end was near. He touched 
Kilquhanity’s arm: “My son,” said he, “look up. 
You have sinned, you must confess your sins and 
repent.” 

Kilquhanity looked up at him with dazed but half- 
smiling eyes. “ Are they gone? Are the women 
gone? ” 

The Cure nodded his head. Kilquhanity’s eyes 
closed and opened again. “ They’re gone thin ! Oh, 
the foine of it ! the foine of it ! ” he whispered. “ So 
quiet, so aisy, so quiet! Faith, I’ll just be shlaping! 
I’ll be shlaping now ! ” 

His eyes closed, but the Cure touched his arm again. 
“ My son,” said he, “ look up. Do you throughly 
and earnestly repent you of your sins? ” 

His eyes opened again. “ Yis, father, oh, yis. 
There’s been a dale o’ noise — there’s been a dale o’ 
noise in the wurruld, father,” said he. “ Oh, so quiet, 
so quiet now I I do be shlaping I ” 

A smile crossed his face. “ Oh, the foine of it ! I 
do be shlaping — shlaping.” 

And he fell into a noiseless Sleep. 


THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 


^’T^HE Manor House at Beaugard, Monsieur? Ah, 
1 certainlee, I mind it very well. It was the first 
in Quebec, and there are many tales. It had a chapel 
and a gallows. Its baron, he had the power of life 
and death, and the right of the seigneur — you under- 
stand ? which he used only once ; and then what trouble 
it made for him and the woman, and the barony, and 
the parish, and all the country ! ” 

“ What is the whole story, Larue ? ’’ said Medallion, 
who had spent months in the seigneur’s company, 
stalking game, and tales, and legends of the St. Law- 
rence. 

Larue spoke English very well — his mother was 
English. 

“ Mais, I do not know for sure ; but the Abbe Fron- 
tone, he and I were snowed up together in that same 
house which now belongs to the Church, and in the 
big fireplace, where we sat on a bench toasting our 
knees and our bacon, he told me the tale as he knew it. 
He was a great scholar — there is none greater. He 
had found papers in the wall of the house, and from the 
Gover’ment chest he got more. Then there were the 
tales handed down, and the records of the Church — for 
she knows the true story of every man that has come to 
New France from first to last. So, because I have a 
taste for tales, and gave him some, he told me of the 
6 * 


i68 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


Baron of Beaugard and that time he took the right of 
the seigneur, and the end of it all. 

“ Of course it was a hundred and fifty years ago, 
when Bigot was Intendant — ah, what a rascal was that 
Bigot, robber and deceiver! He never stood by a 
friend, and never fought fair a foe — so the Abbe said. 
Well, Beaugard was no longer young. He had built 
the Manor Blouse, he had put up his gallows, he had 
his vassals, he had been made a lord. He had quar- 
relled with Bigot, and had conquered, but at great cost ; 
for Bigot had such power, and the Governor had 
trouble enough to care for himself against Bigot, 
though he was Beaugard’s friend. 

“ Well, there was a good lump of a fellow who had 
been a soldier, and he picked out a girl in the Seign- 
eury of Beaugard to make his wife. It is said the girl 
herself was not set for the man, for she was of finer 
stuff than the peasants about her, and showed it. But 
her father and mother had a dozen other children, and 
what was this girl, this Falise, to do? She said yes to 
the man, the time was fixed for the marriage, and it 
came along. 

“ So. At the very hour of the wedding Beaugard 
came by, for the church was in mending, and he had 
given leave it should be in his own chapel. Well, he 
rode by just as the bride was coming out with the man 
— Garoche. When Beaugard saw Falise he gave a 
whistle^ then spoke in his throat, reined up his horse, 
and got down. He fastened his eyes on the girl’s. A 
strange look passed between them — he had never seen 
her before, -but she had seen him often, and when he 
was gone had helped the housekeeper with his rooms. 
She ha;d carried away with her a stray glove of his. 
Of course it, sounds droll, and they said of her when all 


THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 169 

came out that it was wicked ; but evil is according to a 
man’s own heart, and the girl had hid this glove as she 
hid whatever was in her soul — hid it even from the 
priest. 

Well, the Baron looked and she looked, and he 
took off his hat, stepped forward, and kissed her on the 
cheek. She turned pale as a ghost, and her eyes took 
the colour that her cheeks lost. When he stepped 
back he looked close at the husband. ‘ What is your 
name ? ’ he said. ‘ Garoche, M’sieu’ le Baron,’ was the 
reply. ‘ Garoche ! Garoche ! ’ he said, eyeing him up 
and down. ‘ You have been a soldier? ’ ‘ Yes, M’sieu’ 
le Baron.’ ‘You have served with me?’ ‘Against 
you, M’sieu’ le Baron . . . when Bigot came 

fighting.’ ‘ Better against me than for me,’ said the 
Baron, speaking to himself, though he had so strong 
a voice that what he said could be heard by those 
near him — that is, those who were tall, for he was 
six and a half feet, with legs and shoulders like a 
bull. 

“ He stooped and stroked the head of his hound for 
a moment, and all the people stood and watched him, 
wondering what next. At last he said : ‘ And what part 
played you in that siege, Garoche ? ’ Garoche looked 
troubled, but answered: ‘ It was in the way of duty, 
M’sieu’ le Baron — I with five others captured the relief- 
party sent from your cousin the Seigneur of Vadrome.’ 

‘ Oh,’ said the Baron, looking sharp, ‘ you were in that, 
were you? Then you know what happened to the 
young Marmette ? ’ Garoche trembled a little, but 
drew himself up and said : ‘ M’sieu’ le Baron, he tried 
to kill the Intendant — there was no other way.’ ‘ What 
part played you in that, Garoche ? ’ Some trembled, 
for they knew the truth, and they feared the mad will 


I/O BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

of the Baron. ‘ I ordered the firing-party, M’sieu’ le 
Baron/ he answered. 

“ The Baron’s eyes got fierce and his face hardened, 
but he stooped and drew the ears of the hound through 
his hand softly. ‘ Marmette was my cousin’s son, and 
had lived with me,’ he said. ‘ A brave lad, and he had 
a nice hatred of vileness — else he had not died. A 
strange smile played on his lips for a moment, then he 
looked at Falise steadily. Who can tell what was 
working in his mind ? ‘ War is war,’ he went on, ‘ and 

Bigot was your master, Garoche ; but the man pays for 
his master’s sins this way or that. Yet I would not 
have it different, no, not a jot.’ Then he turned round 
to the crowd, raised his hat to the Cure, who stood on 
the chapel steps, once more looked steadily at Falise, 
and said: ‘You shall all come to the Manor House, 
and have your feastings there, and we will drink to the 
home-coming of the fairest woman in my barony. 
With that he turned round, bowed to Falise, put on 
his hat, caught the bridle through his arm, and led 
his horse to the Manor House. 

“ This was in the afternoon. Of course, whether 
they wished or not, Garoche and Falise could not re- 
fuse, and the people were glad enough, for they would 
have a free hand at meat and wine, the Baron being 
liberal of table. And it was as they guessed, for though 
the time was so short, the people at Beaugard soon had 
the tables heavy with food and drink. It was just at 
the time of candle-lighting the Baron came in, and 
gave a toast. ‘ To the dwellers in Eden to-night,’ he 
said — ‘ Eden against the time of the Angel and the 
Sword.’ I do not think that any except the Cure 
and the woman understood, and she, maybe, only be- 
cause a woman feels the truth about a thing, even when 


THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 


71 


her brain does not. After they had done shouting to 
his toast, he said a good-night to all, and they began to 
leave, the Cure among the first to go, with a troubled 
look in his face. 

‘‘ As the people left, the Baron said to Garoche and 
Falise, ‘ A moment with me before you go.' The wom- 
an started, for she thought of one thing, and Garoche 
started, for he thought of another — the siege of Beau- 
gard and the killing of young Marmette. But they 
followed the Baron to his chamber. Coming in, he 
shut the door on them. Then he turned to Garoche. 
‘You will accept the roof and bed of Beaugard to- 
night, my man,’ he said, ‘ and come to me here at nine 
to-morrow morning.’ Garoche stared hard for an in- 
stant. ‘ Stay here ! ’ said Garoche, ‘ Falise and me stay 
here in the manor, M’sieu’ le Baron ! ’ ‘ Here, even 

here, Garoche ; so good-night to you,’ said the Baron. 
Garoche turned towards the girl. ‘ Then come, Falise,’ 
he said, and reached out his hand. ‘ Your room shall 
be shown you at once,’ the Baron added softly, ‘ the 
lady’s at her pleasure.’ 

“ Then a cry burst from Garoche, and he sprang 
forward, but the Baron waved him back. ‘ Stand off,’ 
he said, ‘ and let the lady choose between us.’ ‘ She is 
my wife,’ said Garoche. ‘ I am your Seigneur,’ said the 
other. ‘And there is more than that,’ he went on; 
‘ for damn me, she is too fine stuff for you, and the 
Church shall untie what she has tied to-day ! ’ At that 
Falise fainted, and the Baron caught her as she fell. 
He laid her on a couch, keeping an eye on Garoche the 
while. ‘ Loose her gown,’ he said, ‘ while I get 
brandy.’ Then he turned to a cupboard, poured 
liquor, and came over. Garoche had her dress open 
at the neck and bosom, and was staring at something 


172 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

on her breast. The Baron saw also, stooped with a 
strange sound in his throat, and picked it up. ‘ My 
glove ! ’ he said. ‘ And on her wedding-day ! ’ He 
pointed. ‘ There on the table is its mate, fished this 
morning from my hunting coat, a pair the Governor 
gave me. You see, man, you see her choice.’ 

“ At that he stooped and put some brandy to her 
lips. Garoche drew back sick and numb, and did noth- 
ing, only stared. Falise came to herself soon, and 
when she felt her dress open, gave a cry. Garoche 
could have killed her then, when he saw her shudder 
from him, as if afraid, over towards the Baron, who 
held the glove in his hand, and said : ‘ See, Garoche, 
you had better go. In the next room they will tell you 
where to sleep. To-morrow, as I said, you will meet 
me here. We shall have things to say, you and I.’ Ah, 
that Baron, he had a queer mind, but in truth he loved 
the woman, as you shall see. 

“ Garoche got up without a word, went to the door 
and opened it, the eyes of the Baron and the woman 
following him, for there was a devil in his eye. In the 
other room there were men waiting, and he was taken 
to a chamber and locked in. You can guess what that 
night must have been to him ! 

“ What was it to the Baron and Falise? ” asked Me- 
dallion. 

“ M’sieu’, what do you think? Beaugard had never 
had an eye for women; loving his hounds, fighting, 
quarrelling, doing wild, strong things. So, all at once, 
he was face to face with a woman who has the look 
of love in her face, who was young, and fine of body, 
so the Abbe said, and was walking to marriage, at her 
father’s will and against her own, carrying the Baron’s 
glove in her bosom. What should Beaugard do? 


THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 


But no, ah, no, M’sieu’, not as you think, not quite. 
Wild, with the bit in his teeth, yes; but at heart — well, 
here was the one woman for him. He knew it all in a 
minute, and he would have her once and for all, and 
till death should come their way. And so he said to 
her, as he raised her, she drawing back afraid, her heart 
hungering for him, yet fear in her eyes, and her fingers 
trembling as she softly pushed him from her. You 
see, she did not know quite what was in his heart. She 
was the daughter of a tenant vassal, who had lived in 
the family of a grand seigneur in her youth, the friend 
of his child — that was all, and that was where she got 
her manners and her mind. 

“ She got on her feet and said : ‘ M’sieu’ le Baron, 
you will let me go — to my husband. I cannot stay 
here. Oh, you are great, you are noble, you would not 
make me sorry, make me to hate myself — and you. I 
have only one thing in the world of any price — you 
would not steal my happiness ? ’ He looked at her 
steadily in the eyes, and said : ‘ Will it make you happy 
to go to Garoche ? ’ She raised her hands and wrung 
them. ‘ God knows, God knows, I am his wife,' she 
said helplessly, ‘ and he loves me.’ ‘ And God knows, 
God knows,’ said the Baron, ‘ it is all a question of 
whether one shall feed and two go hungry, or two 
gather and one have the stubble. Shall not he stand 
in the stubble ? What has he done to merit you ? What 
would he do? You are for the master, not the man; 
for love, not the feeding on ; for the manor house and 
the hunt, not the cottage and the loom.’ 

“ She broke into tears, her heart thumping in her 
throat. ' I am for what the Church did for me this 
day,’ she said. ‘ Oh, sir, I pray you, forgive me and let 
me go. Do not punish me, but forgive me — and let me 


174 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

go. I was wicked to wear your glove — wicked, wicked.’ 
‘ But no,’ was his reply, ' I shall not forgive you so 
good a deed, and you shall not go. And what the 
Church did for you this day she shall undo — by all the 
saints, she shall ! You came sailing into my heart this 
hour past on a strong wind, and you shall not slide out 
on an ebb-tide. I have you here, as your Seigneur, 
but I have you here as a man who will ’ 

“ He sat down by her at that point, and whispered 
softly in her ear: at which she gave a cry which had 
both gladness and pain. ‘ Surely, even that,’ he said, 
catching her to his breast. ‘ And the Baron of Beau- 
gard never broke his word. What should be her re- 
ply ? Does not a woman when she truly loves, always 
believe ? That is the great sign. She slid to her knees 
and dropped her head into the hollow of his arm. ‘ I 
do not understand these things,’ she said, ‘ but I know 
that the other was death, and this is life. And yet I 
know, too, for my heart says so, that the end — the end, 
will be death.’ 

“ ‘ Tut, tut, my flower, my wild-rose,’ he said. ‘ Of 
course the end of all is death, but we will go a-Maying 
first, come October and the breaking of the world 
when it must. We are for Maying now, my rose of all 
the world ! ’ It was as if he meant more than he said, 
as if he saw what would come in that October which all 
New France never forgot, when, as he said, the world 
broke over them. 

“ The next morning the Baron called Garoche to 
him. The man was like some mad buck harried by 
the hounds, and he gnashed his teeth behind his shut 
lips. The Baron eyed him curiously, yet kindly, too, 
as well he might, for when was ever man to hear 
such a speech as came to Garoche the morning after 


THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 175 


his marriage. ‘ Garoche/ the Baron said, having 
waved his men away, ‘ as you see, the lady made her 
choice — and for ever. You and she have said your 
last farewell in this world — for the wife of the Baron of 
Beaugard can have nothing to say to Garoche the 
soldier.’ At that Garoche snarled out, ‘ The wife of 
the Baron of Beaugard! That is a lie to shame all 
hell.’ The Baron wound the lash of a riding-whip 
round and round his fingers quietly, and said : ‘ It is 
no lie, my man, but the truth.’ Garoche eyed him 
savagely, and growled : ‘ The Church made her my wife 
yesterday. And you I — you ! — you I — ah, you who had 
all — you with your money and place, which could get 
all easy, you take the one thing I have. You, the 
grand seigneur, are only a common robber I Ah, Jesu 
— if you would but fight me I ” 

“ The Baron, very calm, said, ‘ First, Garoche, the 
lady was only your wife by a form which the Church 
shall set aside— it could never have been a true mar- 
riage. Second, it is no stealing to take from you what 
you did not have. I took what was mine — remember 
the glove! For the rest — to fight you? No, my 
churl, you know that’s impossible. You may shoot 
me from behind a tree or a rock, but swording with 
you? — Come, come, a pretty gossip for the Court! 
Then, why wish a fight? Where would you be, as 
you stood before me — you ? ’ The Baron stretched 
himself up, and smiled down at Garoche. ‘ You have 
your life, man ; take it and go — to the farthest corner of 
New France, and show not your face here again. If 
I find you ever again in Beaugard, I will have you 
whipped from parish to parish. Here is money for 
you — good gold coins. Take them, and go.’ 

'' Garoche got still and cold as stone. He said in a 


1/6 BORIN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

low, harsh voice, ‘ M’sieu’ le Baron, you are a common 
thief, a wolf, a snake. Such men as you come lower 
than Judas. As God has an eye to see, you shall pay 
all one day. I do not fear you nor your men nor your 
gallows. You are a jackal, and the woman has a filthy 
heart — a ditch of shame.’ 

“ The Baron drew up his arm like lightning, and the 
lash of his whip came singing across Garoche’s pale 
face. Where it passed, a red welt rose, but the man 
never stirred. The arm came up again, but a voice 
behind the Baron said, ‘ Ah, no, no, not again ! ’ There 
stood Falise. Both men looked at her. ‘ I have heard 
Garoche,’ she said. ‘ He does not judge me right. 
My heart is no filthy ditch of shame. But it was break- 
ing when I came from the altar with him yesterday. 
Yet I would have been a true wife to him after all. A 
ditch of shame — ah, Garoche — Garoche ! And you said 
you loved me, and that nothing could change you ! ” 

“ The Baron said to her : ‘ Why have you come, 
Falise? I forbade you.’ ‘ Oh, my lord,’ she answered, 
‘ I feared — for you both. When men go mad they 
know not what they do. A devil enters into them.’ 
The Baron, taking her by the hand, said, ‘ Permit me,’ 
and he led her to the door for her to pass out. She 
looked back sadly at Garoche, standing for a minute 
very still. Then Garoche said, ‘ f command you, come 
with me; you are my wife.’ She did not reply, but 
shook her head at him. Then he spoke out high and 
fierce : ‘ May no child be born to you. May a cur§§ 
fall on you. May your fields be barren, and yott. 
horses and cattle die. May you never see nor hear 
good things. May the waters leave their courses to 
drown you, and the hills their bases to bury you, and 
no hand lay you in decent graves ! ’ 


THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 


77 


“ The woman put her hands to her ears and gave a 
little cry, and the Baron pushed her gently on, and 
closed the door after her. Then he turned on Garoche. 

‘ Have you said all you wish ? ’ he asked. ‘ For, if not, 
say on, and then go ; and go so far you cannot see the 
sky that covers Beaugard. We are even now — we can 
cry quits. But that I have a little injured you, you 
should be done for instantly. But hear me: if I ever 
see you again, my gallows shall end you straight. 
Your tongue has been gross before the mistress of this 
manor ; I will have it torn out if it so much as syllables 
her name to me or to the world again. She is dead to 
you. Go, and go for ever ! ’ 

“ He put a bag of money on the table, but Garoche 
turned away from it, and without a word left the room, 
and the house, and the parish, and said nothing to any 
man of the evil that had come to him. 

“ But what talk was there, and what dreadful things 
were said at first ! — that Garoche had sold his wife to 
the Baron ; that he had been killed and his wife taken ; 
that the Baron kept him a prisoner in a cellar under the 
Manor House. And all the time there was Falise with 
the Baron — very quiet and sweet and fine to see, and 
going to Chapel every day, and to Mass on Sundays — 
which no one could understand, any more than they 
could see why she should be called the Baroness of 
Beaugard; for had they all not seen her married to 
Garoche ? And there were many people who thought 
her vile. Yet truly, at heart, she was not so — not at 
all. Then it was said that there was to be a new mar- 
riage ; that the Church would let it be so, doing and un- 
doing, and doing again. But the weeks and the months 
went by, and it was never done. For, powerful as the 
Baron was. Bigot, the Intendant, was powerful also. 


78 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


and fought the thing with all his might. The Baron 
went to Quebec to see the Bishop and the Governor, 
and though promises were made, nothing was done. 
It must go to the King and then to the Pope, and from 
the Pope to the King again, and so on. And the 
months and the years went by as they waited, and with 
them came no child to the Manor House of Beaugard. 
That was the only sad thing — that and the waiting, so 
far as man could see. For never were man and woman 
truer to each other than these, and never was a lady of 
the manor kinder to the poor, or a lord freer of hand to 
his vassals. He would bluster sometimes, and string a 
peasant up by the heels, but his gallows was never used, 
and, what was much in the minds of the people, the 
Cure did not refuse the woman the sacrament. 

“ At last, the Baron, fierce because he knew that 
Bigot was the cause of the great delay, so that he might 
not call Falise his wife, seized a transport on the river, 
which had been sent to brutally levy upon a poor 
gentleman, and when Bigot’s men resisted, shot them 
down. Then Bigot sent against Beaugard a company 
of artillery and some soldiers of the line. The guns 
were placed on a hill looking down on the Manor 
House across the little river. In the evening the can- 
nons arrived, and in the morning the fight was to 
begin. The guns were loaded and everything was 
ready. At the Manor all was making ready also, and 
the Baron had no fear. 

“ But Falise’s heart was heavy, she knew not why. 
‘ Eugene,’ she said, ^ if anything should happen ! ’ 
' Nonsense, my Falise,’ he answered ; ' what should 
happen ? ’ ' If — if you were taken — were killed ! ’ she 
said. ' Nonsense, my rose,’ he said again, ‘ I shall not 
be killed. But if I were, you should be at peace here.’ 


THE BARON OF BEAUGARD 179 


^ Ah, no, no,’ said she. ^ Never. Life to me is only 
possible with you. I have had nothing but you — none 
of those things which give peace to other women — 
none. But I have been happy — oh, yes, very happy. 
And, God forgive me ! Eugene, I cannot regret, and I 
never have. But it has been always and always my 
prayer that, when you die, I may die with you — at 
the same moment. For I cannot live without you, 
and, besides, I would like to go to the good God 
with you to speak for us both ; for oh, I loved you, I 
loved you, and I love you still, my husband, my 
adored ! ’ 

“ He stooped — he was so big, and she but of middle 
height — kissed her, and said, ‘ See, my Falise, I am 
of the same mind. We have been happy in life, and 
we could well be happy in death together.’ So they 
sat long, long into the night and talked to each other 
— of the days they had passed together, of cheerful 
things, she trying to comfort herself, and he trying to 
bring smiles to her lips. At last they said good-night, 
and he lay down in his clothes ; and after a few mo- 
ments she was sleeping like a child. But he could 
not sleep, for he lay thinking of her and of her life — 
how she had come from humble things and fitted in 
with the highest. At last, at break of day, he arose 
and went outside. He looked up at the hill where 
Bigot’s two guns were. Men were already stirring 
there. One man was standing beside the gun, and 
another not far behind. Of course the Baron could 
not know that the man behind the gunner said : ‘Yes, 
you may open the dance with an early salute ’ ; and he 
smiled up boldly at the hill and went into the house, 
and stole to the bed of his wife to kiss her before he 
began the day’s fighting. He looked at her a moment. 


8o BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


standing over her, and then stooped and softly put 
his lips to hers. 

“ At that moment the gunner up on the hill used 
the match, and an awful thing happened. With the 
loud roar the whole hillside of rock and gravel and 
sand split down, not ten feet in front of the gun, moved 
with horrible swiftness upon the river, filled its bed, 
turned it from its course, and, sweeping on, swal- 
lowed the Manor House of Beaugard. There had 
been a crack in the hill, the water of the river had 
sapped its foundations, and it needed only this shock 
to send it down. 

“ And so, as the woman wished : the same hour for 
herself and the man ! And when at last their prison 
was opened by the willing hands of Bigot’s men, they 
were found cheek by cheek, free for ever from all 
mortal bonds, but bound in the sacred marriage of 
Death. 

“ But another had gone the same road, for, at the 
awful moment, beside the bursted gun, the dying gun- 
ner, Garoche, lifted up his head, saw the loose travel- 
ling hill, and said with his last breath : ‘ The waters 

drown them, and the hills bury them, and ’. He 

had his way with them, and after that perhaps the 
great God had His way with him — perhaps.” 


/ 


PARABLES OF A PROVINCE 








THE GOLDEN PIPES 


T hey hung all bronzed and shining, on the side 
of Margath Mountain — the tall and perfect 
pipes of the organ, which was played by some son of 
God when the world was young. At least, Hepnon 
the cripple said this was so, when he was but a child, 
and when he got older he said that even now a golden 
music came from the pipes at sunrise and sunset. And 
no one laughed at Hepnon, for you could not look 
into the dark warm eyes, dilating with his fancies, nor 
see the transparent temper of his face, the look of the 
dreamer over all, without believing him, and reproving 
your own judgment. You felt that he had travelled 
ways you could never travel, that he had had dreams 
beyond you, that his fanciful spirit had had adventures 
you would give years of your dull life to know. 

And yet he was not made only as women are made, 
fragile and trembling in his nerves. For he was strong 
of arm, and there was no place in the hills to be climbed 
by venturesome man, which he could not climb with 
crutch and shrivelled leg. And he was a gallant horse- 
man, riding with his knees and one foot in stirrup, 
his crutch slung behind him. It may be that was why 
rough men listened to his fancies about the Golden 
Pipes. Indeed they would go out at sunrise and look 
across to where the pipes hung, taking the rosy glory 
of the morning, and steal away alone at sunset, and in 
some lonely spot lean out towards the flaming instru- 


i64 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


ment to hear if any music rose from them. The legend 
that one of the Mighty Men of the Kimash Hills came 
here to play, with invisible hands, the music of the 
first years of the world, became a truth, though a truth 
that none could prove. And by-and-by, no man ever 
travelled the valley without taking off his hat as he 
passed the Golden Pipes — so had a cripple with his 
whimsies worked upon the land. 

Then too perhaps his music had to do with it. As 
a child he had only a poor concertina, but by it he drew 
the traveller and the mountaineer and the worker in 
the valley to him like a magnet. Some touch of the 
mysterious, some sweet fantastical melody in all he 
played, charmed them, even when he gave them old 
familiar airs. From the concertina he passed to the 
violin, and his skill and mastery over his followers 
grew ; and then there came a notable day when up over 
a thousand miles of country a melodeon was brought 
him. Then a wanderer, a minstrel outcast from 
a far country, taking refuge in those hills, taught 
him, and there was one long year of loving labour 
together, and merry whisperings between the two 
and secret drawings, and worship of the Golden 
Pipes; and then the minstrel died, and left Hepnon 
alone. 

And now they said that Hepnon tried to coax out 
of the old melodeon the music of the Golden Pipes. 
But a look of sorrow grew upon his face, and stayed 
for many months. Then there came a change, and he 
went into the woods, and began working there in the 
perfect summer weather, and the tale went abroad that 
he was building an organ, so that he might play for all 
who came, the music he heard on the Golden Pipes — 
for they had ravished his ear since childhood, and now 


THE GOLDEN PIPES 185 

he must know the wonderful melodies all by heart, they 
said. 

With consummate patience Hepnon dried the wood 
and fashioned it into long tuneful tubes, beating out 
soft metal got from the forge in the valley to case the 
lips of them, tanning the leather for the bellows, 
stretching it, and exposing all his work to the sun of 
early morning, which gave every fibre and valve a rich 
sweetness, like a sound fruit of autumn. People also 
said that he set all the pieces out at sunrise and sunset 
that the tone of the Golden Pipes might pass into 
them, so that when the organ was built, each part 
should be saturated with such melody as it had drawn 
in, according to its temper and its fibre. 

And so the building of the organ went on, and a year 
passed, and then another, and it was summer again, 
and soon Hepnon began to build also — while yet it 
was sweet weather — a home for his organ, a tall nest 
of cedar added to his father’s house. And in it every 
piece of wood, and every board had been made ready 
by his own hands, and set in the sun and dried slowly 
to a healthy soundness ; and he used no nails of metal, 
but wooden pins of the ironwood or hickory tree, and 
it was all polished, and there was no paint or varnish 
anywhere, and when you spoke in this nest your voice 
sounded pure and strong. 

At last the time came when, piece by piece, the 
organ was set up in its home; and as the days and 
weeks went by, and autumn drew to winter, and the 
music of the Golden Pipes stole down the flumes of 
snow to their ardent lover, and spring came with its 
sap, and small purple blossoms, and yellow apples of 
mandrake, and summer stole on luxurious and dry; 
the face of Hepnon became thinner and thinner, a 


i86 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


strange deep light shone in his eyes, and all his person 
seemed to exhale a kind of glow. He ceased to ride, 
to climb, to lift weights with his strong arms as he 
had — poor cripple — been once so proud to do. A 
delicacy came upon him, and more and more he with- 
drew himself to his organ, and to those lofty and 
lonely places where he could see — and hear — the 
Golden Pipes boom softly over the valley. 

At last it all was done, even to the fine-carved stool 
of cedar whereon he should sit when he played his 
organ. Never yet had he done more than sound each 
note as he made it, trying it, softening it by tender 
devices with the wood ; but now the hour was come 
when he should gather down the soul of the Golden 
Pipes to his fingers, and give to the ears of the world 
the song of the morning stars, the music of Jubal and 
his comrades, the affluent melody to which the sons of 
men in the first days paced the world in time with the 
thoughts of God. For days he lived alone in the 
cedar-house, — and who may know what he was doing : 
dreaming, listening, or praying ? Then the word 
went through the valley and the hills, that one evening 
he would play for all who came; — and that day was 
“ Toussaint ” or the Feast of All Souls. 

So they came both old and young, and they did not 
enter the house, but waited outside, upon the mossy 
rocks, or sat among the trees, and watched the heavy 
sun roll down and the Golden Pipes flame in the light 
of evening. Far beneath in the valley the water ran 
lightly on, but there came no sound from it, none from 
anywhere; only a general pervasive murmur quieting 
to the heart. 

Now they heard a note come from the organ, a soft 
low sound that seemed to rise out of the good earth 


THE GOLDEN PIPES 


187 


and mingle with the vibrant air left by the song of 
birds, the whisper of trees, and the flowing water. Then 
came another, and another note, then chords, and 
chords upon these, and by-and-by rolling tides of 
melody, until, as it seemed to the listeners, the air 
ached with the incomparable song; and men and 
women wept, and children hid their heads in the laps 
of their mothers, and young men and maidens dreamed 
dreams never to be forgotten. For one short hour the 
music went on, then twilight fell. Presently the sounds 
grew fainter, and exquisitely painful, and now a low 
sob seemed to pass through all the heart of the organ, 
and then silence fell, and in the sacred pause, Hepnon 
came out among them all, pale and desolate. He 
looked at them a minute most sadly, and then lifting 
up his arms towards the Golden Pipes, now hidden 
in the dusk, he cried low and brokenly : 

“ O, my God, give me back my dream ! ’’ 

And then his crutch seemed to give way beneath 
him, and he sank upon the ground, faint and gasping. 

They raised him up, and women and men whispered 
in his ear : 

“ Ah, the beautiful, beautiful music, Hepnon ! ” 

But he only said: 

O, my God, O, my God, give me back my dream ! ” 
When he had said it thrice, he turned his face to 
where his organ was in the cedar-house, and then his 
eyes closed, and he fell Asleep. And they could not 
wake him. But at sunrise the next morning a shiver 
passed through him, and then a cold quiet stole over 
him, and Hepnon and the music of the Golden Pipes 
departed from the Voshti Hills, and came again no 
more. 


THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE 


“ Height unto height answer eth knowledge." 

H iS was the first watch, the farthest fire, for Shak- 
non Hill towered above the great gulf, and 
looked back also over thirty leagues of country towards 
the great city. There came a time again when all the 
land was threatened. From sovereign lands far off, 
two fleets were sailing hard to reach the wide basin 
before the walled city, the one to save, the other to de- 
stroy. If Tinoir, the Guardian of the Fire, should sight 
the destroying fleet, he must light two fires on Shaknon 
Hill, and then, at the edge of the wide basin, in a 
treacherous channel, the people would send out fire- 
rafts to burn ^he ships of the foe. Five times in the 
past hac Tinoir been the Guardian of the Fire, and 
five times had the people praised him ; but praise and 
his scanty wage were all he got. 

The hut in which he lived with his wife on another 
hill, ten miles from Shaknon, had but two rooms, and 
their little farm and the garden gave them only enough 
to live, no more. Elsewhere there was good land in 
abundance, but it had been said years ago to Tinoir by 
the great men, that he should live not far from Shak- 
non, so that in times of peril he might guard the fire, 
and be the sentinel for all the people. Perhaps Tinoir 
was too dull to see that he was giving all and getting 
naught; that while he waited and watched he was 
always poor, and also was getting old. There was no 


THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE 189 

house or home within fifty miles of them, and only 
now and then some wandering Indians lifted the latch, 
and drew in beside their hearth, or a good priest with 
a soul of love for others, came and said Mass in the 
room where a little Calvary had been put up. Two 
children had come and gone, and Tinoir and Dalice 
had dug their graves and put them in a warm nest of 
maple leaves, and afterwards lived upon the memories 
of them. But after these two, children came no more ; 
and Tinoir and Dalice grew close and closer to each 
other, coming to look alike in face, as they had long 
been alike in mind and feeling. None ever lived nearer 
to nature than they, and wild things grew to be their 
friends ; so that you might see Dalice at her door, toss- 
ing crumbs with one hand to birds, and with the other 
bits of meat to foxes, martins, and wild dogs, that came 
and went unharmed by them. Tinoir shot no wild 
animals for profit — -only for food and for skins and furs 
to wear. Because of this he was laughed at by all 
who knew, save the priest of St. Sulpice, who, on 
Easter Day, when the little man came yearly to Mass 
over two hundred miles of country, praised him to his 
people and made much of him, though Tinoir was not 
vain enough to see it. 

When word came down the river, and up over the 
hills to Tinoir that war was come and that he must go 
to watch for the hostile fleet and for the friendly fleet 
as well, he made no murmur, though it was the time 
of harvest, and Dalice had had a sickness from which 
she was not yet recovered. 

“ Go, my Tinoir,” said Dalice, with a little smile, 
“ and I will reap the grain. If your eyes are sharp you 
shall see my bright sickle moving in the sun.” 

‘‘ There is the churning of the milk too, Dalice,” 


igo BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

answered Tinoir ; “ you are not strong, and sometimes 
the butter comes slow, and there’s the milking also.” 

“ Strength is coming to me fast, Tinoir,” she said, 
and drew herself up ; but her dress lay almost flat on 
her bosom. Tinoir took her arm and felt it above the 
elbow. 

“ It is like the muscle of a little child,” he said. 

“ But I will drink those bottles of red wine the 
Governor sent the last time you watched the fire on 
Shaknon,” she said, brightening up, and trying to 
cheer him. 

He nodded, for he saw what she was trying to do, 
and said : “ And a little of the gentian and orange root 
three times a day — eh, Dalice ? ” 

After arranging for certain signs, by little fires, 
which they were to light upon the hills and so speak 
with each other, they said, “ Good day, Dalice,” and 

Good day, Tinoir,” drank a glass of the red wine, and 
added, “ Thank the good God ; ” then Tinoir wiped 
his mouth with his sleeve, and went away, leaving 
Dalice with a broken glass at her feet, and a look in 
her eyes which it is well that Tinoir did not see. 

But as he went he was thinking how, the night 
before, Dalice had lain with her arm round his neck 
hour after hour as she slept, as she did before they ever 
had a child ; and that even in her sleep, she kissed him 
as she used to kiss him before he brought her away 
from the parish of Ste. Genevieve to be his wife. And 
the more he thought about it the happier he became, 
and more than once he stopped and shook his head in 
pleased retrospection. And Dalice thought of it too 
as she hung over the churn, her face drawn and tired 
and shining with sweat ; and she shook her head, and 
tears came into her eyes, for she saw further into things 


THE GUARDIAN OF THE FIRE 191 

than Tinoir. And once as she passed his coat on the 
wall, she rubbed it softly with her hand, as she might 
his curly head when he lay beside her. 

From Shaknon Tinoir watched, but of course, he 
could never see her bright sickle shining, and he could 
not know whether her dress still hung loose upon her 
breast, or whether the flesh of her arms was still like a 
child’s. If all was well with Dalice a little fire should 
be lighted at the house door just at the going down of 
the sun, and it should be at once put out. If she were 
ill, a fire should be lit and then put out two hours after 
sundown. If she should be ill beyond any help, this 
fire should burn on till it went out. 

Day after day Tinoir, as he watched for the coming 
fleet, saw the fire lit at sundown, and then put out. 
But one night the fire did not come till two hours after 
sundown, and it was put out at once. He fretted 
much, and he prayed that Dalice might be better, and 
he kept to his post, looking for the fleet of the foe. 
Evening after evening was this other fire lighted and 
then put out at once, and a great longing came to him 
to leave this guarding of the fire, and go to her — “ For 
half a day,” he said — “ just for half a day.” But in 
that half day the fleet might pass, and then it would 
be said that Tinoir had betrayed his country. At last 
sleep left him and he fought a demon night and day, 
and always he remembered Dalice’s arm about his 
neck, and her kisses that last night they were together. 
Twice he started away from his post to go to her, but 
before he had gone a hundred paces he came back. 

One afternoon at last he saw ships, not far off, 
rounding the great cape in the gulf, and after a time, at 
sunset, he knew by their shape and sails it was the 
fleet of the foe, and so he lighted his great fires, and 
7 


192 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

they were answered leagues away towards the city by 
another beacon. 

Two hours after sunset of this day the fire in front 
of Tinoir’s home was lighted, and was not put out, and 
Tinoir sat and watched it till it died away. So he lay 
in the light of his own great war-fire till morning, for 
he could not travel at night, and then, his duty over, he 
went back to his home. He found Dalice lying beside 
the ashes of her fire, past hearing all he said in her 
ear, unheeding the kiss he set upon her lips. 

Two nights afterwards, coming back from laying 
her beside her children, he saw a great light in the sky 
towards the city, as of a huge fire. When the courier 
came to him bearing the Governor’s message and the 
praise of the people, and told of the enemy’s fleet 
destroyed by the fire-rafts, he stared at the man, then 
turned his head to a place where a pine cross showed 
against the green grass, and said : 

“ Dalice — my wife — is dead.” 

“ You have saved your country, Tinoir,” answered 
the courier kindly. 

“ What is that to me ! ” he said, and fondled the 
rosary Dalice used to carry when she lived; and he 
would speak to the man no more 


BY THAT PLACE CALLED PERAD- 
VENTURE 


B y that place called Peradventure in the Voshti 
Hills dwelt Golgothar the strong man, who, it 
was said, could break an iron pot with a blow, or pull 
a tall sapling from the ground. 

“ If I had a hundred men so strong,” said Golgothar, 
“ I would go and conquer Nooni the city of our foes.” 

Because he had not the hundred men he did not go, 
and Nooni still sent insults to the country of Golgo- 
thar, and none could travel safe between the capitals. 
And Golgothar was sorry. 

“ If I had a hundred men so strong,” said Golgothar, 
“ I would build a dyke to keep the floods back from 
the people crowded on the lowlands.” 

Because he had not the hundred men, now and again 
the floods came down, and swept the poor folk out to 
sea, or laid low their habitations. And Golgothar 
pitied them. 

“ If I had a hundred men so strong,” said Golgo- 
thar, “ I would clear the wild boar from the forests, 
that the children should not fear to play among the 
trees.” 

Because he had not the hundred men the graves of 
children multiplied, and countless mothers sat by 
empty beds and mourned. And Golgothar put his 
head between his knees in trouble for them. 

“ If I had a hundred men so strong,” said Golgo- 
thar, I would with great stones mend the broken 


194 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

pier, and the bridge between the islands should not 
fall.” 

Because he had not the hundred men, at last the 
bridge gave way, and a legion of the King’s army were 
carried to the whirlpool, where they fought in vain. 
And Golgothar made a feast of remembrance to them, 
and tears dripped on his beard when he said, “ Hail and 
Farewell ! ” 

“ If I had a hundred men so strong,” said Golgo- 
thar, “ I would go against the walls of chains our rebels 
built, and break them one by one.” 

Because he had not the hundred men the chain 
walls blocked the only pass between the hills, and so 
cut in two the kingdom : and they who pined for corn 
went wanting, and they who wished for fish went 
hungry. And Golgothar, brooding, said his heart bled 
for his country. 

“ If I had a hundred men so strong,” said Golgo- 
thar, “ I would go among the thousand brigands of 
Mirnan, and bring again the beloved daughter of our 
city.” 

Because he had not the hundred men the beloved 
lady languished in her prison, for the brigands asked as 
ransom the city of Talgone which they hated. And 
Golgothar carried in his breast a stone image she had 
given him, and for very grief let no man speak her 
name before him. 

“ If I had a hundred men so strong — ” said Golgo- 
thar, one day, standing on a great point of land and 
looking down the valley. 

As he said it, he heard a laugh, and looking down 
he saw Sapphire, or Laugh of the Hills, as she was 
called. A long staff of ironwood was in her hands, 
with which she jumped the dykes and streams and 


PLACE CALLED PERADVENTURE 195 

rocky fissures ; in her breast were yellow roses, and 
there was a tuft of pretty feathers in her hair. She 
reached up and touched him on the breast with her 
staff, then she laughed again, and sang a snatch of song 
in mockery : 

“ I am a king, 

I have no crown, 

I have no throne to sit in — ” 

“ Pull me up, boy,” she said. She wound a leg 
about the staff, and, taking hold, he drew her up as if 
she had been a feather. 

“ If I had a hundred mouths I would kiss you for 
that,” she said, still mocking, “ but having only one 
ril give it to the cat, and weep for Golgothar.” 

“ Silly jade,” he said, and turned towards his tent. 

As they passed a slippery and dangerous place, 
where was one strong solitary tree, she suddenly threw 
a noose over him, drew it fast and sprang far out over 
the precipice into the air. Even as she did so, he 
jumped behind the tree, and clasped it, else on the 
slippery place he would have gone over with her. The 
rope came taut, and presently he drew her up again 
to safety, and while she laughed at him and mocked 
him, he held her tight under his arm, and carried her 
to his lodge, where he let her go. 

“ Why did you do it, devil’s madcap ? ” he said. 

“ Why didn’t you wait for the hundred men so 
strong?” she laughed. “Why did you jump behind 
the tree ? 

“ ‘ If I had a hundred men, higho, 

I would buy my corn for a penny a gill. 

If I had a hundred men or so, 

I would dig a grave for the maid of the hill, higho ! ’ ” 


196 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

He did not answer her, but stirred the soup in the 
pot and tasted it, and hung a great piece of meat over 
the fire. Then he sat down, and only once did he 
show anger as she mocked him, and that was when 
she thrust her hand into his breast, took out the little 
stone image, and said : 

“ If a little stone god had a hundred hearts, 

Would a little stone goddess trust in one ? ” 

Then she made as if she would throw it into the fire, 
but he caught her hand and crushed it, so that she 
cried out for pain and anger, and said : 

“ Brute of iron, go break the posts in the brigands’ 
prison-house, but leave a poor girl’s wrist alone. If 
I had a hundred men — ” she added, mocking wildly 
again, and then, springing at him, put her two thumbs 
at the corners of his eyes, and cried : “ Stir a hand, and 
out they will come — your eyes — for my bones ! ” 

He did not stir till her fury was gone. Then he 
made her sit down and eat with him, and afterwards 
she said softly to him, and without a laugh : Why 
should the people say, ‘ Golgothar is our shame, for 
he has great strength and yet he does nothing, but 
throw great stones for sport into the sea ’ ? ” 

He had the simple mind of a child, and he listened 
to her patiently, and at last got up and began preparing 
for a journey, cleaning all his weapons, and gathering 
them together. She understood him, and she said, 
with a little laugh like music : “ One strong man is 
better than a hundred — a little key will open a great 
door easier than a hundred hammers. What is the 
strength of a hundred bullocks without this ? ” she 
added, tapping him on the forehead. 


PLACE CALLED PERADVENTURE 197 

Then they sat down and talked together quietly for 
a long time, and at sunset she saw him start away upon 
great errands. 

Before two years had gone, Nooni, the city of their 
foes, was taken, the chain wall of the rebels opened 
to the fish and corn of the poor, the children wandered 
in the forest without fear of wild boars, the dyke was 
built to save the people in the lowlands, and Golgothar 
carried to the castle the King had given him the 
daughter of the city, freed from Mirnan. 

“ If Golgothar had a hundred wives — ” said a voice 
to the strong man as he entered the castle gates. 

I.ooking up he saw Sapphire. He stretched out his 
hand to her in joy and friendship. 

“ — I would not be one of them,” she added with a 
mocking laugh, as she dropped from the wall, leaped 
the moat by the help of her staff, and danced away 
laughing. There are those who say, however, that 
tears fell down her cheeks as she laughed. 


THE SINGING OF THE BEES 


M other, did’st thou not say thy prayers last 
night?’’ 

“ Twice, my child.” 

'' Once before the little shrine, and once beside my 
bed, — is it not so ? ” 

It is so, my Fanchon. What hast thou in thy 
mind? ” 

Thou did’st pray that the storm die in the hills,, 
and the flood cease, and that my father come before 
it was again the hour of prayer. It is now the hour. 
Can’st thou not hear the storm and the wash of the 
flood ? And my father does not come ! ” 

“ My Fanchon, God is good.” 

“ When thou wast asleep, I rose from my bed, and 
in the dark I kissed the feet of — Him — on the little 
Calvary, and I did not speak> but in my heart I called.” 
“ What did’st thou call, my child ? ” 

“ I called to my father, — ‘ Come back ! come back ! ’” 
“ Thou should’st have called to God, my Fanchon.” 
“ I loved my father, and I called to him.” 

Thou should’st love God.” 

“ I knew my father first. If God loved thee. He 
would answer thy prayer. Dost thou not hear the 
cracking of the cedar trees and the cry of the wolves — 
they are afraid? All day and all night the rain and 
wind come down, and the birds and wild fowl have no 
peace. I kissed — His feet, and my throat was full of 


THE SINGING OF THE BEES 


199 

tears, but I called in my heart. Yet the storm and the 
dark stay, and my father does not come.” 

“ Let us be patient, my Fanchon.” 

“ He went to guide the priest across the hills. Why 
does not God guide him back ? ” 

“ My Fanchon, let us be patient.” 

“ The priest was young, and my father has grey 
hair.” 

“ Wilt thou not be patient, my child ! ” 

“ He filled the knapsack of the priest with food 
better than his own, and — thou did’st not see it — put 
money in his hand.” 

“ My own, the storm may pass.” 

“ He told the priest to think upon our home as a 
little nest God set up here for such as he.” 

“ There are places of shelter in the hills for thy 
father, my Fanchon.” 

“ And when the priest prayed, ‘ That Thou may’st 
bring us safely to this place where we would go,' my 
father said so softly, '‘We beseech Thee to hear us^ 
good Lord ! ' ” 

“ My Fanchon, thy father hath gone this trail many 
times.” 

“ The prayer was for the out-trail, not the in-trail, 
my mother.” 

“ Nay, I do not understand thee.” 

“ A swarm of bees came singing through the room 
last night, my mother. It was dark and I could not 
see, but there was a sweet smell, and I heard the 
voices.” 

“ My child, thou art tired with watching, and thy 
mind is full of fancies. Thou must sleep.” 

“ I am tired of watching. Through the singing of the 
bees as they passed over my bed, I heard my father’s 
7 * 


200 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


voice. I could not hear the words, they seemed so far 
away, like the voices of the bees ; and I did not cry out, 
for the tears were in my throat. After a moment the 
room was so still that it made my heart ache.” 

“ Oh, my Fanchon, my child, thou dost break my 
heart ! Dost thou not know the holy words ? — 

^ And their souls do pass like singing bees^ where no 
man may follow. These are they whom God gather eth 
out of the whirlwind and the desert^ and bringeth home 
in a goodly swarm. 

Night drew close to the earth, and as suddenly as a 
sluice-gate drops and holds back a flood, the storm 
ceased. Along the crest of the hills there slowly grew 
a line of light, and then the serene moon came up and 
on, persistent to give the earth love where it had had 
punishment. Divers flocks of clouds, camp-followers 
of the storm, could not abash her. But once she drew 
shrinking back behind a slow troop of them, for down 
at the bottom of a gorge lay a mountaineer, face up- 
ward and unmoving, as he had lain since a rock loos- 
ened beneath him, and the depths swallowed him. If 
he had had ears to hear, he would have answered the 
soft, bitter cries which rose from a hut on the Voshti 
Hills above him — 

“ Michel, Michel, art thou gone? ” 

‘‘ Come back, oh, my father, come back ! ” 

But perhaps it did avail that there were lighted 
candles before a little shrine, and that a mother, in her 
darkness, kissed the feet of One on a Calvary. 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 


I T lay between the mountains and the sea, and a 
river ran down past it, carrying its good and ill 
news to a pacific shore, and out upon soft winds, travel- 
ling lazily to the scarlet east. All white and a tem- 
pered red, it nestled in a valley with other valleys on 
lower steppes, which seemed as if built by the gods, 
that they might travel easily from the white-topped 
mountains, Margath, Shaknon, and the rest, to wash 
their feet in the sea. In the summer a hot but gracious 
mistiness softened the green of the valleys, the varying 
colours of the hills, the blue of the river, the sharp out- 
lines of the cliffs. Along the high shelf of the moun- 
tain, mule-trains travelled like a procession seen in 
dreams — slow, hazy, graven, yet moving, a part of the 
ancient hills themselves ; upon the river great rafts, 
manned with scarlet-vested crews, swerved and swam, 
guided by the gigantic oars which needed five men to 
lift and sway — argonauts they from the sweet-smelling 
forests to the salt-smelling main. In winter the little 
city lay still under a coverlet of pure white, with the 
mists from the river and the great falls above frozen 
upon the trees, clothing them as graciously as with 
white samite, so that far as eye could see there was 
a heavenly purity upon all, covering every mean and 
distorted thing. There were days when no wind 
s^tirred anywhere, and the gorgeous sun made the little 
city and all the land roundabout a pretty silver king- 


202 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


dom, where Oberon and his courtiers might have 
danced and been glad. 

Often, too, you could hear a distant woodcutter’s 
axe make a pleasant song in the air, and the wood- 
cutter himself, as the hickory and steel swung in a 
shining half-circle to the bole of balsam, was clad in 
the bright livery of a frost, his breath issuing in gray 
smoke like life itself, mystic and peculiar, man, axe, 
tree, and breath, one common being. And when, by- 
and-by, the woodcutter added a song of his own to the 
song his axe made, the illusion was not lost, but rather 
heightened; for it, too, was part of the unassuming 
pride of nature, child-like simplicity, primeval in its 
suggestion and expression. The song had a soft 
monotony, swinging back and forth to the waving axe 
like the pendulum of a clock. It began with a low 
humming, as one could think man made before he 
heard the Voice which taught him how to speak. And 
then came the words : — 

“ None shall stand in the way of the lord, 

The lord of the Earth — of the rivers and trees, 

Of the cattle and fields and vines ! 

Hew ! 

Here shall I build me my cedar home, 

A city with gates, a road to the sea — ’ 

For I am the lord of the Earth ! 

Hew! Hew! 

Hew and hew, and the sap of the tree 
Shall be yours, and your bones shall be strong. 

Shall be yours, and your heart shall rejoice, ’ 

Shall be yours, and the city be yours. 

And the key of its gates be the key 
Of the home where your little ones dwell. 

Hew, and be strong ! Hew and rejoice ! 

For man is the lord of the Earth, 

And God is the Lord over all ! ” 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 203 

And so long as the little city stands will this same 
woodcutter’s name and history stand also. He had 
camped where it stood now, when nothing was there 
save the wild duck in the reeds, the antelopes upon the 
hills, and all manner of furred and feathered things ; 
and it all was his. He had seen the yellow flashes of 
gold in the stream called Pipi, and he had not gathered 
it, for his life was simple, and he was young enough 
to cherish in his heart the love of the open world 
beyond the desire of cities and the stir of the market- 
place. In those days there was not a line in his face, 
not an angle in his body — all smoothly rounded and 
lithe and alert, like him that was called “ the young 
lion of Dedan.” Day by day he drank in the wisdom 
of the hills and the valleys, and he wrote upon the 
dried barks of trees the thoughts that came as he lay 
upon the bearskin in his tent, or cooled his hands and 
feet, of a hot summer day, in the moist, sandy earth, 
and watched the master of the deer lead his cohorts 
down the passes of the hills. 

But by-and-by mule-trains began to crawl along the 
ledges of Margath Mountain, and over Shaknon came 
adventurers, and after them, wandering men seeking 
a new home, women and children coming also. But 
when these came he had passed the spring-time of 
his years, and had grown fixed in the love of the valley, 
where his sole visitors had been passing tribes of 
Indians, who knew his moods and trespassed not at all 
on his domain. The adventurers hungered for the 
gold in the rivers, and they made it one long washing- 
trough, where the disease that afflicted them passed on 
from man to man like poison down a sewer. Then the 
little city grew, and with the search for gold came 
other seekings and findings and toilings, and men who 


204 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

came as one stops at an inn to feed, stayed to make 
their home, and women made the valley cheerful, 
and children were born, and the pride of the place 
was as great as that of some village of the crimson 
East, where every man has ancestors to Mahomet and 
beyond. 

And he, Felion, who had been lord and master of the 
valley, worked with them, but did not seek for riches, 
and more often drew away into the hills to find some 
newer place unspoiled by man. But again and again 
he returned, for no fire is like the old fire, and no trail 
like the old trail. And at last it seemed as if he had 
driven his tent-peg in the Pipi Valley forever ; for from 
among the women who came he chose one comely 
and wise and kind, and for five years the world grew 
older, and Felion did not know it. When he danced 
his little daughter on his knee, he felt that he had 
found a new world. 

But a day came when trouble fell upon the little 
city, for of a sudden the reef of gold was lost, and 
the great crushing mills stood idle, and the sound of 
the hammers was stayed. And they came to Felion, 
because in his youth he had been of the best of the 
schoolmen ; and he got up from his misery — only the 
day before his wife had taken a great and lonely 
journey to that Country which welcomes, but never 
yields again — and, leaving his little child behind, he 
went down to the mines. And in three days they 
found the reef once more; for it had curved like the 
hook of a sickle, and the first arc of the yellow circle 
had dropped down into the bowels of the earth. 

And so he saved the little city from disaster, and 
the people blessed him at the moment ; and the years 
went on. 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 205 


Then there came a time when the little city was 
threatened with a woeful flood, because of a breaking 
flume; but by a simple and wise device Felion stayed 
the danger. 

And again the people blessed him ; and the years 
went on. 

By-and-by an awful peril came, for two score chil- 
dren had set a great raft loose upon the river, and they 
drifted down towards the rapids in the sight of the 
people ; and mothers and helpless fathers wrung their 
hands, for on the swift tide no boat could reach them, 
and none could intercept the raft. But Felion, seeing, 
ran out upon the girders of a bridge that was being 
builded, and there, before them all, as the raft passed 
under, he let himself fall, breaking his leg as he 
dropped among the timbers of the fore-part of the raft ; 
for the children were all gathered at the back, where 
the great oars lay motionless, one dragging in the 
water behind. Felion drew himself over to the huge 
oar, and with the strength of five men, while the people 
watched and prayed, he kept the raft straight for the 
great slide, else it had gone over the dam and been 
lost, and all that were thereon. A mile below, the raft 
was brought to shore, *and again the people said that 
Felion had saved the little city from disaster. 

And they blessed him for the moment ; and the years 
went on. 

Felion’s daughter grew towards womanhood, and 
her beauty was great, and she was welcome everywhere 
in the valley, the people speaking well of her for her 
own sake. But at last a time came when of the men 
of the valley one called, and Felion ’s daughter came 
quickly to him, and with tears for her father, and smiles 
for her husband, she left the valley and journeyed into 


2o6 born with a golden spoon 


the east, having sworn to love and cherish him while 
she lived. And her father, left solitary, mourned for 
her, and drew away into a hill above the valley in a 
cedar house that he built ; and having little else to love,, 
loved the earth, and sky, and animals, and the children 
from the little city when they came his way. But his 
heart was sore ; for by-and-by no letters came from his 
daughter, and the little city, having prospered, con- 
cerned itself no more with him. When he came into 
its streets there were those who laughed, for he was 
very tall and rude, and his grey hair hung loose on his 
shoulders, and his dress was still a hunter’s. They 
had not long remembered the time when a grievous 
disease, like a plague, fell upon the place, and people 
died by scores, as sheep fell in a murrain. And again 
they had turned to him, and he, because he knew of a 
miraculous medicine got from Indian sachems, whose 
people had suffered of this sickness, came into the 
little city, and by his medicines and fearless love and 
kindness he stayed the plague. 

And thus once more he saved the little city from 
disaster, and they blessed him for the moment ; and the 
years went on. 

In time they ceased to think of Felion at all, and he 
was left alone ; even the children came no more to visit 
him, and he had pleasure only in hunting and shoot- 
ing and in felling trees, with which he built a high 
stockade and a fine cedar house within it. And all 
the work of this he did with his own hands, even to the 
polishing of the floors and the carved work of the large 
fireplaces. Yet he never lived in the house, nor in 
any room of it, and the stockade gate was always shut ; 
and when any people passed that way they stared and 
shrugged their shoulders, and thought Felion mad or 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 207 


a fool. But he was wise in his own way, which was 
not die way of those who had reason to bless him for- 
ever, and who forgot him, though he had served them 
through so many years. Against the little city he had 
an exceeding bitterness; and this grew, and had it 
not been that his heart was kept young by the love of 
the earth, and the beasts about him in the hills, he must 
needs have cursed the place and died. But the sight of 
a bird in the nest with her young, and the smell of a 
lair, and the light of the dawn that came out of the 
east, and the winds that came up from the sea, and the 
hope that would not die kept him from being of those 
who love not life for life’s sake, be it in ease or in sor- 
row. He was of those who find all worth the doing, 
even all worth the suffering ; and so, though he 
frowned and his lips drew tight with anger when he 
looked down at the little city, he felt that elsewhere in 
the world there was that which made it worth the 
saving. 

If his daughter had been with him he would have 
laughed at that which his own hands had founded, 
protected, and saved. But no word came from her, 
and laughter was never on his lips — only an occasional 
smile when, perhaps, he saw two sparrows fighting, or 
watched the fish chase each other in the river, or a toad, 
too lazy to jump, walk stupidly like a convict, dragging 
his long, green legs behind him. And when he looked 
up towards Shaknon and Margath, a light came in his 
eyes, for they were wise and quiet, and watched the 
world, and something of their grandeur drew about 
him like a cloak. As age cut deep lines in his face and 
gave angles to his figure, a strange, settled dignity 
grew upon him, whether he swung his axe by the 
balsams or dressed the skins of the animals he had 


208 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


killed, piling up the pelts in a long shed in the stockade, 
a goodly heritage for his daughter, if she ever came 
back. Every day at sunrise he walked to the door of 
his house and looked eastward steadily, and sometimes 
there broke from his lips the words, “ My daughter — 
Malise ! ” Again, he would sit and brood with his 
chin in his hand, and smile, as though remembering 
pleasant things. 

One day at last, in the full tide of summer, a man, 
haggard and troubled, came to Felion’s house, and 
knocked, and, getting no reply, waited, and whenever 
he looked down at the little city he wrung his hands, 
and more than once he put them up to his face and 
shuddered, and again looked for Felion. Just when 
the dusk was rolling down, Felion came back, and, see- 
ing the man, would have passed him without a word, 
but that the man stopped with an eager, sorrowful 
gesture and said : “ The plague has come upon us 
again, and the people, remembering how you healed 
them long ago, beg you to come.” 

At that Felion leaned his fishing-rod against the 
door, and answered : “ What people ? ” 

The other then replied : “ The people of the little 
city below, Felion.” 

“ I do not know your name,” was the reply ; “ I 
know naught of you or of your city.” 

“ Are you mad? ” cried the man. “ Do you forget 
the little city down there ? Have you no heart ? ” 

A strange smile passed over Felion’s face, and he 
answered : ‘‘ When one forgets why should the other 
remember? ” 

He turned and went into the house and shut the 
door, and though the man knocked, the door was not 
opened, and he went back angry and miserable, and 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 209 

the people could not believe that Felion would not 
come to help them, as he had done all his life. At 
dawn three others came, and they found Felion look- 
ing out towards the east, his lips moving as though he 
prayed. Yet it was no prayer, only a call, that was on 
his lips. They felt a sort of awe in his presence, for 
now he seemed as if he had lived more than a century, 
so wise and old was the look of his face, so white his 
hair, so set and distant his dignity. They begged 
him to come, and, bringing his medicines, save the 
people, for death was galloping through the town, 
knocking at many doors. 

“ One came to heal you,” he answered — “ the young 
man of the schools, who wrote mystic letters after his 
name ; it swings on a brass by his door — where is he ? ” 

“ He is dead of the plague,” they replied, “ and the 
other also that came with him, who fled before the 
sickness, fell dead of it on the roadside, going to the 
sea.” 

“ Why should I go ? ” he replied, and he turned 
threateningly to his weapon, as if in menace of their 
presence. 

“ You have no one to leave behind,” they answered 
eagerly, “ and you are old.” 

“ Liars ! ” he rejoined, “ let the little city save itself,” 
and he wheeled and went into his house, and they saw 
that they had erred in not remembering his daughter, 
whose presence they had once prized. They saw that 
they had angered him beyond soothing, and they went 
back in grief, for two of them had lost dear relatives 
by the fell sickness. When they told what had hap- 
pened, the people said : We will send the women ; he 
will listen to them — he had a daughter.” 

That afternoon, when all the hills lay still and dead, 


210 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


and nowhere did bird or breeze stir, the women came, 
and they found him seated with his back turned to the 
town. He was looking into the deep 'woods, into the 
hot shadows of the trees. 

“ We have come to bring you to the little city,” 
they said to him ; “ the sick grow in numbers every 
hour.” 

“ It is safe in the hills,” he answered, not looking at 
them. “ Why do the people stay in the valley ? ” 

“ Every man has a friend, or a wife, or a child, ill or 
dying, and every woman has a husband, or a child, or 
a friend, or a brother. Cowards have fled, and many 
of them have fallen by the way.” 

“ Last summer I lay sick here many weeks and none 
came near me ; why should I go to the little city ? ” he 
replied austerely. “ Four times I saved it, and of all 
that I saved none came to give me water to drink, or 
food to eat, and I lay burning with fever, and thirsty 
and hungry — God of Heaven, how thirsty ! ” 

“We did not know,” they answered humbly; “ you 
came to us so seldom, we had forgotten; we were 
fools.” 

“ I came and went fifty years,” he answered bitterly, 
“ and I have forgotten how to rid the little city of the 
plague ! ” 

At that one of the women, mad with anger, made as 
if to catch him by his beard, but she forbore, and 
said : “ Liar ! the men shall hang you to your own roof- 
tree.” 

His eyes had a wild light, but he waved his hand 
quietly, and answered : “ Begone, and learn how great 
a sin is ingratitude.” 

He turned away from them gloomily, and would 
have entered his home, but one of the women, who 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 21 1 


was young, plucked his sleeve, and said sorrowfully : 
“ I loved Malise, your daughter.” 

“ And forgot her and her father. I am three score 
and ten years, and she has been gone fifteen, and for 
the first time I see your face,” was his scornful reply. 

She was tempted to say : “ I was ever bearing chil- 
dren and nursing them, and the hills were hard to 
climb, and my husband would not go ; ” but she saw 
how dark his look was, and she hid her face in her 
hands and turned away to follow after the others. She 
had five little children, and her heart was anxious for 
them and her eyes full of tears. 

Anger and remorse seized on the little city, and 
there were those who would have killed Felion, but 
others saw that the old man had been sorely wronged 
in the past, and these said: “Wait until the morrow 
and we will devise something.” 

That night a mule-train crept slowly down the 
mountain side and entered the little city, for no one 
who came with them knew of the plague. The cara- 
van had come from the east across the great plains, 
and not from the west, which was the travelled highway 
to the sea. Among them was a woman who already 
was ill of a fever, and knew little of what passed 
round her. She had with her a beautiful child; and 
one of the women of the place devised a thing. 

“ This woman,” she said, “ does not belong to the 
little city, and he can have nothing against her ; she is a 
stranger. Let one of us take this beautiful lad to him, 
and he shall ask Felion to come and save his mother.” 

Every one approved the woman’s wisdom, and in 
the early morning she herself, with another, took the 
child and went up the long hillside in the gross heat ; 
and when they came near Felion’s house the women 


212 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


stayed behind, and the child went forward, having been 
taught what to say to the old man. 

Felion sat just within his doorway, looking out into 
the sunlight which fell upon the red and white walls 
of the little city, flanked by young orchards, with great, 
oozy meadows beyond these, where cattle ate, knee- 
deep in the lush grass and cool reed-beds. Along 
the riverside, far up on the high banks, were the tall 
couches of dead Indians, set on poles, their useless 
weapons laid along the deerskin pall. Down the hurry- 
ing river there passed a raft, bearing a black flag on a 
pole, and on it were women and children who were 
being taken down to the sea from the doomed city. 
These were they who had lost fathers and brothers, 
and now were going out alone with the shadow of the 
plague over them, for there was none to say them nay. 
The tall oarsmen bent to their task, and Felion felt his 
blood beat faster when he saw the huge oars swing 
high, then drop and bend in the water, as the raft 
swung straight in its course and passed on safe through 
the narrow slide into the white rapids below, which 
licked the long timbers as with white tongues, and 
tossed spray upon the sad voyagers. Felion remem- 
bered the day when he left his own child behind and 
sprang from the bridge to the raft whereon were the 
children of the little city, and saved them. 

And when he tried to be angry now, the thought of 
the children as they watched him, with his broken leg 
striving against their peril, softened his heart. He 
shook his head, for suddenly there came to him the 
memory of a time, three score years before, when he 
and the foundryman’s daughter had gone hunting 
flag-flowers by the little trout stream, of the songs 
they sang together at the festivals, she in her sweet 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 213 


Quaker garb and demure Quaker beauty, he lithe, 
alert, and full of the joy of life and loving. As he sat 
so, thinking, he wondered where she was, and why he 
should be thinking of her now, facing the dreary 
sorrow of this pestilence and his own anger and ven- 
geance. He nodded softly to the waving trees far 
down in the valley, for his thoughts had drifted on to 
his wife as he first saw her. She stood bare-armed 
among the wild grapevines by a wall of rock, the dew 
of rich life on her lip and forehead, her grey eyes 
swimming with a soft light ; and looking at her he had 
loved her at once, as he had loved, on the instant, the 
little child that came to him later; as he had loved 
the girl into which the child grew, till she left him and 
came back no more. Why had he never gone in 
search of her ? 

He got to his feet involuntarily and stepped towards 
the door, looking down into the valley. As his eyes 
rested on the little city his face grew dark, but his 
eyes were troubled and presently grew bewildered, for 
out of a green covert near there stepped a pretty boy, 
who came to him with frank, unabashed face and a 
half-shy smile. 

Felion did not speak at first, but stood looking, and 
presently the child said : “ I have come to fetch you.” 

“To fetch me where, little man?” asked Felion, a 
light coming into his face, his heart beating faster. 

“ To my mother. She is sick.” 

“ Where is your mother? ” 

“ She’s in the village down there,” answered the boy, 
pointing. 

In spite of himself, Felion smiled in a sour sort of 
way, for the boy had called the place a village, and he 
enjoyed the unconscious irony. 


214 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

'■'What is the matter with her?” asked Felion, 
beckoning the lad inside. 

The lad came and stood in the doorway, looking 
round curiously, while the old man sat down and 
looked at him, moved, he knew not why. 

The bright steel of Felion’s axe, standing in the 
corner, caught the lad’s eye and held it. Felion saw, 
and said: "What are you thinking of?” 

The lad answered : " Of the axe. When I’m bigger 
I will cut down trees and build a house, a bridge, and a 
city. Aren’t you coming quick to help my mother? 
She will die if you don’t come.” 

Felion did not answer, and from the trees without 
two women watched him anxiously. 

" Why should I come? ” asked Felion, curiously. 

" Because she’s sick, and she’s my mother.” 

" Why should I do it because she’s your mother ? ” 

" I don’t know,” the lad answered, and his brow 
knitted in the attempt to think it out, “ but I like you.” 
He came and stood beside the old man and looked 
into his face with a pleasant confidence. " If your 
mother was sick, and I could heal her, I would — I 
know I would — I wouldn’t be afraid to go down into 
the village.” 

Here were rebuke, love, and impeachment, all in 
one, and the old man half started from his seat., 

" Did you think I was afraid ? ” he asked of the boy, 
as simply as might a child of a child, so near are chil- 
dren and wise men in their thoughts. 

" I knew if you didn’t it’d be because you were 
angry or were afraid, and you didn’t look angry.” 

" How does one look when one is angry ? ” 

" Like my father.” 

" And how does your father look ? ” 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 215 


“ My father’s dead.” 

“ Did he die of the plague?” asked Felion, laying 
his hand on the lad’s shoulder. 

“ No,” said the lad quickly, and shut his lips tight. 

“ Won’t you tell me? ” asked Felion, with a strange 
inquisitiveness. 

“ No. Mother’ll tell you, but I won’t ; ” and the 
lad’s eyes filled with tears. 

‘‘ Poor boy! poor boy I ” said Felion, and his hand 
tightened on the small shoulder. 

“ Don’t be sorry for me ; be sorry for mother, please,” 
said the boy, and he laid a hand on the old man’s knee, 
and that touch went to a heart long closed against the 
little city below; and Felion rose and said: “I will 
go with you to your mother.” 

Then he went into another room, and the boy came 
near the axe and ran his fingers along the bright steel, 
and fondled the handle, as does a hunter the tried 
weapon which has been his through many seasons. 
When the old man came back he said to the boy: 
“ Why do you look at the axe ? ” 

“ I don’t know,” was the answer ; “ maybe because 
my mother used to sing a song about the woodcutters.” 

Without a word, and thinking much, he stepped out 
into the path leading to the little city, the lad holding 
one hand. Years afterwards men spoke with a sort 
of awe or reverence of seeing the beautiful stranger 
lad leading old Felion into the plague-stricken place, 
and how, as they passed, women threw themselves at 
Felion’s feet, begging him to save their loved ones. 
And a drunkard cast his arm round the old man’s 
shoulder and sputtered foolish pleadings in his ear; 
but Felion only waved them back gently, and said: 
“ By-and-by, by-and-by — God help us all ! ” 


2i6 born with a golden spoon 


Now a fevered hand snatched at him from a door- 
way, moanings came from everywhere, and more than 
once he almost stumbled over a dead body; others 
he saw being carried away to the graveyard for hasty 
burial. Few were the mourners that followed, and the 
faces of those who watched the processions go by were 
set and drawn. The sunlight and the green trees 
seemed an insult to the dead. 

They passed into the house where the sick woman 
lay, and some met him at the door with faces of joy and 
meaning; for now they knew the woman and would 
have spoken to him of her ; but he waved them by, and 
put his fingers upon his lips and went where a fire 
burned in a kitchen, and brewed his medicines. And 
the child entered the room where his mother lay, and 
presently he came to the kitchen and said : “ She is 
asleep — my mother.” 

The old man looked down on him a moment steadily, 
and a look of bewilderment came into his face. But 
he turned away again to the simmering pots. The boy 
went to the window, and, leaning upon the sill, began 
to hum softly a sort of chant, while he watched a 
lizard running hither and thither in the sun. As he 
hummed the old man listened, and presently, with his 
medicines in his hands and a half-startled look, he 
came over to the lad. 

“ What are you humming? ” he asked. 

The lad answered: “ A song of the woodcutters.” 

“ Sing it again,” said Felion. 

The lad began to sing : 

“ Here shall I build me my cedar house, 

A city with gates, a road to the sea — 

For I am the lord of the Earth ! 

Hew! Hew!” 


THERE WAS A LITTLE CITY 217 


The old man stopped him. “ What is your name? ” 
“ My name is Felion/’ answered the lad, and he put 
his face close to the jug that held the steaming tinc- 
tures, but the old man caught the little chin in his huge 
hand and bent back the head, looking long into the 
lad’s eyes. At last he caught little Felion’s hand and 
hurried into the other room, where the woman lay in 
a stupor. The old man came quickly to her and looked 
into her face. Seeing, he gave a broken cry and said : 
Malise, my daughter ! Malise ! ” 

He drew her to his breast, and as he did so he 
groaned aloud, for he knew that inevitable Death was 
waiting for her at the door. He straightened himself 
up, clasped the child to his breast, and said : “ I, too, 
am Felion, my little son.” 

And then he set about to defeat that dark, hovering 
Figure at the door. 

For three long hours he sat beside her, giving her 
little by little his potent medicines ; and now and again 
he stopped his mouth with his hand, lest he should cry 
out ; and his eyes never wavered from her face, not even 
to the boy, who lay asleep in the corner. 

At last his look relaxed its vigilance, for a dewy 
look passed over the woman’s face, and she opened her 
eyes and saw him, and gave a little cry of “ Father ! ” 
and was straightway lost in his arms. 

“ I have come home to die,” she said. 

“ No, no, to live,” he answered firmly. “ Why did 
you not send me word all these long years ? ” 

“ My husband was in shame, in prison, and I in 
sorrow,” she answered sadly. “ I could not.” 

He is ” he paused. “ He did evil? ” 

“ He is dead,” she said. “ It is better so.” Her 
eyes wandered round the room restlessly, and then 


2i8 born with a golden spoon 


fixed upon the sleeping child, and a smile passed over 
her face. She pointed to the lad. 

The old man nodded. “ He brought me here,” he 
said gently. Then he got to his feet. “ You must 
sleep now,” he added, and he gave her a cordial. “ I 
must go forth and save the sick.” 

It is a plague ? ” she asked. 

He nodded. “ They said you would not come to 
save them,” she continued reproachfully. “ You came 
to me because I was your Malise, only for that ? ” 

“ No, no,” he answered ; I knew not who you were ; 
I came to save a mother to her child.” 

“ Thank God, my father,” she said. 

With a smile she hid her face in the pillow. At last 
leaving her and the child asleep, old Felion went forth 
into the little city, and the people flocked to him, and 
for many days he came and went ceaselessly. And 
once more he saved the city, and the people blessed 
him ; and the years go on. 


THE WHITE OMEN 


V. 


"‘A H, Monsieur, Monsieur, come quick ! ” 
jr\ '' My son, wilt thou not be patient ? ’’ 

“ But she — my Fanchon — and the child ! ” 

“ I knew thy Fanchon, and her father, when thou 
wast yet a child/^ 

“ But they may die before we come. Monsieur/’ 

“ These things are in God’s hands, Gustave.” 

“ You are not a father; you have never known what 
makes the world seem nothing ! ” 

“ I knew thy Fanchon’s father.” 

“ Is that the same ? ” 

“ There are those who save, and those who die for 
others. Of thy love thou would’st save — the woman 
hath lain in thy arms, the child is of this. But to 
thy Fanchon’s father I was merely a priest — we had 
not hunted together, nor met often about the fire, and 
drew fast the curtains for the tales which bring men 
close. He took me safely on the out-trail, but on the 
home-trail was cast away. Dost thou not think the 
love of him that stays as great as the love of him that 
goes ? ” 

'' Ah, thou would’st go far to serve my wife and 
child ! ” 

“ Love knows not distance ; it hath no continent ; its 
eyes are for the stars, its feet for the sv ords ; it con- 
tinueth, though an army lay waste the pasture; it 
comforteth when there are no medicines; it hath 


220 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


the relish of manna, and by it men do live in the 
desert.” 

“ But if it pass from a man, that which he loves, and 
he is left alone. Monsieur ? ” 

“ That which is loved may pass, but love hath no 
end.” 

“ Thou did’st love my Fanchon’s father? ” 

“ I prayed him not to go, for a storm was on, but 
there was the thought of wife and child on him, — the 
good Michel ! — and he said, ‘ It is the home-trail, and 
I must get to my nest ! ’ Poor soul, poor soul ! I 
who carry my life as a leaf in autumn for the west 

wind was saved — and he ” 

“ We are on the same trail now. Monsieur? ” 

“ See ! how soft a night, and how goodly is the 
moon.” 

“ It is the same trail now as then. Monsieur? ” 

“ And how like velvet are the shadows in the gorge 
there below — like velvet — velvet ! ” 

“ Like a pall. He travelled this trail. Monsieur? ” 
“ I remember thy Fanchon that night — so small a 
child was she, with deep brown eyes, a cloud of hair 
that waved about her head, and a face that shone like 
spring. I have seen her but once since then, and yet 
thou say’st thy Fanchon has now her great hour, that 
she brings forth ? ” 

“ Yes. In the morning she cried out to me twice, 
for I am not easy of waking, — shame to me! — and 
said, ‘ Gustave, thou shalt go for the priest over the 
hills, for my time is at hand, and I have seen the White 
Omen on the wall.’ The White Omen — you know, 
Monsieur ? ” 

“ What does such as she with the legend of the 
White Omen, Gustave ? ” 


THE WHITE OMEN 


221 


“ Who can tell what is in the heart of a mother ? 
Their eyes are not the eyes of such as we.” 

“ Neither the eyes of man or priest, — thou sayest 
well. How did she see it ? ” 

“ She was lying in a soft sleep, when something like 
a pain struck through her eyes, and she waked. There 
upon the wall, over the shrine, was the white arrow 
with the tuft of fire. It came and went three times, 
and then she called me.” 

“ What tale told the arrow to thy Fanchon, Gus- 
tave ? ” 

“ That for the child which cometh into the world, a 
life must go from the world.” 

“ The world is wide, and souls are many, Gustave.” 

“ Most true, but her heart was heavy, and it came 
upon her that the child might be spared and herself 
taken.” 

” Is not that the light in thy home — yonder against 
the bunch of firs ? ” 

“ Yes, yes, good father, they have put a light in 
the window. See, see, there are two lights ! Ah, 
merci, merci, they both live — she hath had her hour! 
That was the sign our mother promised me ! ” 

“ Michel’s wife — ah, yes, Michel’s wife ! Blessed be 
God. A moment, Gustave, let us kneel here . . .” 

. Monsieur, did you not see a white arrow 
shoot down the sky as the prayer ended ? ” 

“ My son, it was a falling star.” 

It seemed to have a tuft of fire.” 

“ Hast thou also the mind of a woman, Gustave ? ” 

“ I cannot tell. If it was not a human soul, it was a 
world, and death is death.” 

“ Thou shalt think of life, Gustave. In thy nest 
there are two birds, where was but one. Keep in thy 


222 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


heart the joy of life and the truth of love, and the White 
Omen shall be naught to thee.” 

“ May I say ‘ thou,’ as I speak ? ” 

“ Thou shalt speak to me as I speak to thee.” 

“ Thy face is pale, art thou ill, mon pere f ” 

“ I have no beard, and the moon shines in my face.” 

Thy look is as that of one without sight.” 

“ Nay, nay, I can see the two lights in thy window, 
my son.” 

“ Joy ! joy ! a little while, and I shall clasp my Fan- 
chon in my arms ! ” 

“ Thy Fanchon, and the child — and the child.” 

The fire sent a trembling glow through the room of 
a hut on a Voshti hill, and the smell of burning fir and 
camphire wood filtered through the air with a sleepy 
sweetness. So delicate and faint between the quilts 
lay the young mother, the little Fanchon, a shining 
wonder still in her face, and the exquisite touch of birth 
on her — for when a child is born, the mother also is 
born again ! So still she lay, until one who gave her 
into the world, stooped, and drawing open the linen at 
her breast nestled a little life there, which presently 
gave a tiny cry, the first since it came forth. Then 
Fanchon’s arms drew up, and with eyes all tenderly 
burning, she clasped the babe to her breast, and as silk 
breast touched silk cheek, there sprang up in her the 
delight and knowledge that the doom of the White 
Omen was not for herself. Then she called the child 
by its father’s name, and said into the distance : 

“ Gustave, Gustave, come back ! ” 

And the mother of Fanchon, remembering one night 
so many years before, said under her breath : 

“ Michel, Michel, thou art gone so long ! ” 


THE WHITE OMEN 


223 

With their speaking Gustave and the priest entered 
on them, and Fanchon, crying out for joy, said : 

“ Kiss thy child, thy little Gustave, my husband.” 
Then to the priest: 

“ Last night I saw the White Omen, my father, and 
one could not die, nor let the child die, without a 
blessing. But, behold ! we shall both live now.” 

The priest blessed all, and long time he talked with 
the wife of the lost Michel. When he rose to go to 
bed, she said to him : “ The journey has been too 

long. Your face is pale and you tremble. Youth has 
no patience. Gustave hurried you, O father.” 

“ Gustave yearned for thy Fanchon and the child. 
The White Omen made him afraid.” 

“ But the journey was too much. It is a hard, a bitter 
trail.” 

“ I have come gladly as I went once with thy Michel. 
But as thou say’st, I am tired — at my heart. I will 
get to my rest.” 

Near dawn Gustave started from the bed where he 
sat watching, for he saw the White Omen over against 
the shrine, and then a voice said, as it were out of a 
great distance: 

“ Even me also, 0 my father! ” 

With awed footsteps, going to see, he found that a 
man had passed out upon that trail, by which no hunter 
from life can set a mark to guide a comrade; leaving 
behind the bones and flesh which God set up, too heavy 
to carry on so long a journey. 

8 


THE TENT OF THE PURPLE MAT 


HE Tent stands on the Mount of Lost Winters, 



1 in that bit of hospitable land called the Fair 
Valley, which is like no other in the North. Whence 
comes the soft wind that comforts it, who can tell ? It 
swims through the great gap in the mountains, and 
passing down the Valley, sinks upon the prairie of the 
Ten Stars, where it is lost. And what man first placed 
the Tent on the Mount, none knows, though legends 
are many. It has a clear outlook to the north whence 
comes the gracious wind, and it is sheltered at the 
south by a stout wall of commendable trees ; yet these 
are at some small distance, so that the Tent has a 
space all about it, and the figure of the general land is 
as that of an amphitheatre. 

The Tent is made of deerskin, dyed by a strange 
process, which turned it white, and, doctored by some 
cunning medicine it is like a perfect parchment, and 
shows no decay. It has a centre-pole of excellent fir, 
and from its peak flies a strip of snake-skin, dyed a red 
that never fades. For the greater part of the year the 
plateau whereon the Tent stands is covered with a 
sweet grass, and when the grass dies there comes a 
fine white frost, ungoverned by the sun, in which the 
footstep sinks, as into unfilled honeycomb. 

The land has few clouds, and no storms, save of the 
lightest — rain which is as mist, and snow which is as 
frosty haze. The sun cherishes the place continually, 
and the moon rises on it with a large rejoicing. 


THE TENT OF THE PURPLE MAT 225 


Yet no man dwells in the Valley. It is many scores 
of leagues from any habitation, from the lodges of the 
Indians or the posts of the Great Company’s people. 
There are few tribes that know of it, and these go not 
to it as tribes, but as one man or one woman has need. 
Men say that beyond it, in another amphitheatre of the 
hills, is White Valley, where the Sleepers are, and the 
Scarlet Hunter is sentinel. Yet who knows! — since 
any that have been there are constrained to be silent, 
or forget what they have seen. 

But this Valley where the Tent stands is for those 
who have broken the commandment, “ Thou shalt not 
sell thy soul.” Hither they come and wait and desire 
continually, and this delightful land is their punish- 
ment, for they have no relish for goodly things, the 
power to enjoy going from them when they bargained 
their souls away. The great peace, the noble pastur- 
age, the equal joy of day and night, wherein is neither 
heat nor coM, where life is like the haze on a harvest- 
field, are for chastisement, till, that by great patience 
and striving, someone, having the gift of sacrifice, shall 
give his life to buy back that soul. For it is in the 
minds of this people of the North that for every life that 
comes into the world, one passes out, and for every 
soul which is bartered away, another must be set free, 
ere it can be redeemed. 

Men and women whom life and their own sins had 
battered, came seeking the Tent, but they were few, 
and they were chiefly old, for conscience cometh 
mostly when man can work and wanton no more. 
Yet one day, when the sight of the Valley was most 
fair to the eyes, there came out of the southmost corner 
a girl who, as soon as she set foot in the Valley, laid 
aside her knapsack in the hollow of a tree, also her 


226 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


moccasins and a little cap of fur, and came on with 
bare head and feet towards the Mount of the Lost 
Winters. 

She was of good stature, ripely made, not beautiful 
of face, but with a look which would make any man 
turn twice to see ; a very glory of fine hair, and a hand 
which spoke oftener than the lips. She had come a 
month’s travel, scarcely halting from sunrise to sunset, 
and she was as worn in body as in spirit. Now as she 
passed up the Valley, she stood still several times, and 
looked round in a kind of dream, as well one might 
who had come out of an inclement south country to 
this sweet nourishment. Yet she stood not still for 
joy and content, but for pain. Once or twice she lifted 
up her hands above her head as though appealing, but 
these pauses were only for brief moments, for she kept 
moving on towards the Mountain with a swift step. 
When she had climbed the plateau where the delicate 
grass yielded with a tender spring to the feet, she 
paused long and gazed round, as though to take a 
last glance at all, then, turning to the Tent, looked 
steadfastly at it, awe and wonder, and something more 
difficult of interpretation, in her face. At last she 
slowly came to the curtain of the Tent, and lifting it 
without a pause, stepped inside, the curtain falling 
behind her. 

The Tent was empty save for the centre-pole, a 
wooden trough of dried fruit, a jar of water, and a 
mat of the most delectable purple colour, which was 
laid between the centre-pole and the tent-curtain. The 
mat was of exquisite make, of chosen fibres of some 
perfect wood, and the hue was as that of a Tyrian dye. 
A soft light pervaded the place, filtering through the 
parchment-like white skin of the Tent. 


THE TENT OF THE PURPLE MAT 227 

Upon the farther side a token was drawn in purple 
on the tent skin, and the girl seeing it, turned quickly 
to the curtain through which she had passed. Upon 
the curtain were other signs. She read them slowly, 
and repeated them out loud in a low, uncertain voice, 
like a bird’s note blundering in a flute : 

‘ ‘ Four hours shalt thou look Northward, kneeling on 
the Mat of Purple^ and thinking of the Camp of the 
Delightful Fires, round which is the foyous City ; four 
hours shalt thou lie prone, thy face upon the soothing 
earth, desiring sleep ; and four hours shalt thou look 
within thine own breast, thinking of thy sin ; four 
hours also shalt thou go through the Valley, calling out 
that thou art lost, and praying the Scarlet Hunter to 
bring thee home. A fterwards thou shalt sleep, and thou 
shalt comfort thyself with food when thou wilt. If the 
Scarlet Hunter come not, and thy life fail for very 
misery, and none comprehending thy state offereth his 
life, that thy soul may be free once more, — then thou 
shalt gladly die, and yielding thine own body, shall pur- 
chase back thy soul : but this last is not possible until 
thou hast dwelt here a year and a day. 

Having read, the girl threw herself face forward on 
the ground, her body shaking with grief, and she cried 
out a man’s name many times with great bitterness. 

“ Ambroise ! Ambroise ! Ambroise ! ” 

xA. long time she lay prone, crying so, but at last 
arose, and folding back the curtain with hot hands, 
began her vigil for the redemption of a soul. 

And while her sorrow grew, a father mourned for his 
daughter, and called his God to witness that he was 
guiltless of her loss, though he had said hard words 
to her, by reason of a man called Ambroise. Then, 


228 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


too, the priest had exhorted her late and early, till her 
mind was in a maze — it is enough to have the pangs 
of youth and love, to be awakened by the pain of mere 
growth and knowledge, without the counsel of the 
overwise to go jolting through the soul. 

The girl was only eighteen. She had never known 
her mother, she had lived as the flowers do, and when 
her hour of trial came, she felt herself cast like a wan- 
dering bird out of the nest. In her childhood she had 
known no teaching save the wholesome catechism of 
a father’s love and the sacred intimacy of Nature. Liv- 
ing so, learning by signs the language of law and 
wisdom, she had indrawn the significance of legend, 
the power of the awful natural. She had made her 
own commandments. 

When Ambroise, the courier, came, she looked into 
his eyes and saw her own — indeed it was most wonder- 
ful, for those two pairs of eyes were as of one person. 
Yet, they were different, he a man, she a woman; he 
versed in evil, she taught in good ; he a vagrant of the 
snows, the fruit of whose life was like the contemptible 
stones of the desert, she the keeper of a goodly lodge, 
past which flowed a water that went softly, making rich 
the land — the fountain of her perfect deeds. He, look- 
ing into her eyes, saw himself when he had no sin on 
his soul, and she into his — as it seemed, her own always 
— saw herself as it were in a cobweb of evils, which she 
could not understand. As his heart grew lighter, hers 
grew sick, even when she knew that these were the 
only eyes in which she could ever see happiness. 

It grew upon her that Ambroise’s sins were hers, 
and not his ; that she, not he, had bartered a soul for 
the wages of sin. When they said at the Fort that 
her eyes and Ambroise’s, and her face and his, were 


THE TENT OF THE PURPLE MAT 229 

as of one piece, the pain of the thought deepened, the 
more because her father and the priest urged that a 
man who had sold himself to the devil was no comrade 
for her in little or much. Yet she loved him as only 
they can who love for the first time, and with the deep 
primitive feelings, which are out of the core of nature. 
But her heart had been cloven as by a wedge, and she 
would not and could not lie in his arms, nor rest her 
cheek to his, nor seek that haven where true love is 
fastened like a nail on the wall of that inn called Home. 
He was herself, he must be bought back ; and so, one 
night, while yet the winter was on, she stole away out 
of the Fort, pausing at his door a moment only, laying 
her hand upon it, as one might tenderly lay it on the 
brow of a sick sleeper. Then she stepped away out 
on the plains, pointing her course by the moon, for 
the Mount of Lost Winters. 

When the people of the Fort waked, and it was 
found that she was gone, searchers sallied out, but re- 
turned as they went after many days. And at last, 
because Ambroise suffered as one ground between 
rolling stones, even the preacher and the father of the 
girl relented towards him. After some weeks there 
came word through a wandering tribe that the body 
of a girl had been found on the Child o’ Sin River, 
and black pelts were hung as mourning on the lodges 
and houses and walls at the Fort, and the father shut 
himself in his room, admitting no one. 

But if the girl had taken the sins of Ambroise with 
her, she had left him beside that soft, flowing river 
of her goodness, and the savour of the herbs on its 
banks was to him like the sun on a patch of pennyroyal, 
bringing medicine to the sick body through the nos- 
trils. So, one morning, after months, having crept 


230 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

from the covert of remorse, he took a guide to start 
him on the right trail, and began his journey to the 
Valley whither she had gone before him, though he 
knew it not. From the moment that his guide left 
him, dangers beset him, and those spirits called the 
Mockers, which are the evil deeds of a man, crying 
to heaven, came crying about him from the dead white 
trees, breathing through the powdery air, whistling 
down the moonlight ; so that to cheer himself he called 
out again and again like any heathen : 


“ Keeper, O Keeper of the Kimash Hills ! 

I am as a dog in the North Sea, 

I am as a bat in a cave. 

As a lizard am I on a prison wall. 

As a tent with no pole. 

As a bird with one wing ; 

I am as a seal in the desert, 

I am as a wild horse alone. 

O Scarlet Hunter of the Kimash Hills ! 

Thou hast an arm like a shooting star. 

Thou hast an eye like the North Sky fires. 

Thou hast a pouch for the hungry. 

Thou hast a tent for the lost. 

Hear me, O Keeper of the Kimash Hills ! ” 


And whether or not this availed him, who can tell? 
There be many names of the One Thing, and the 
human soul hath the same north and south, if there 
be any north and south and east and west, save in 
the words of men. But something availed; and one 
day a foot-worn traveller entering the Valley at the 
southmost corner, laid his cap and bag, moccasins, 
bow and arrow, and an iron weapon, away in a hollow 
log, seeing not that there were also another bag and 
cap and a pair of moccasins there. Then, barefooted 


THE TENT OF THE PURPLE MAT 231 

and bareheaded, he marched slowly up the Valley, and 
all its loveliness smote him as a red iron is buffeted 
at the forge ; and an exquisite agony coursed through 
his veins, so that he cried out, hiding his face. And 
he needs must look and look, all his sight aching with 
this perfection, never overpowering him, but keeping 
him ever in the relish of his torture. 

At last he came to the door of the Tent in the late 
evening, and intent now only to buy back the soul 
he had marketed, — for the sake of the memory of the 
woman, and believing that none would die for him, 
and that he must die for himself, he lifted the curtain 
and entered. Then he gave a great cry, for there she 
lay asleep, face downward, her forehead on the Purple 
Mat. 

“ Sherah ! Sherah ! ” he cried, dropping on his knees 
beside her, and lifting up her head. 

“ Ambroise ! ” she called out faintly, her pale face 
drawing away from his breast. 

“ Sherah, why hast thou come here ? ” he said. 
"‘Thou! Thou!” 

“ To buy back my soul, Ambroise. And this is the 
last day of the year that I have spent here. — Oh, why, 
why didst thou come? To-morrow all should have 
been well ! ” 

“ To buy back thy soul — thou didst no wrong ! ” 

But at that minute their eyes drew close, and 
changed, and he understood. 

“ For me ! For me ! ” he whispered. 

“ Nay, for me ! ” she replied. 

Then they noticed that the Purple Mat on which 
they knelt was red under their knees, and a goodly 
light shone through the Tent, not of the day or night. 
And as thev looked amazed, the curtain of the Tent 
. 8 * 


232 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

drew open, and One entered, clothed in red from head 
to foot; and they knew him to be the Scarlet Hunter, 
the lover of the lost, the Keeper of the Kimash Hills. 

Looking at them steadfastly, he said to Sherah, 
“ Thou hast prevailed. To-night at the setting of the 
sun an old man died in Syria, who uttered thy name 
as in a dream when he passed. The soul of Ambroise 
hath been bought back by thee.’’ 

Then he spoke to Ambroise. “ Because thy spirit 
was willing, and for the woman’s sake, thou shalt have 
peace ; but this year which she hath spent for thee shall 
be taken from thy life, and added to hers. Come, and 
I will start ye on the swift trail to your own country, 
and ye shall come here no more.” 

As they rose, obeying him, they saw that the red 
of the Mat had gone a perfect white, and they knew 
not what to think, for they had acted after the manner 
of the heathen ; but, that night, as they travelled with 
joy towards that inn called Home, down at the Fort, 
a priest cried to those who would hear him. 

Though your sins be as scarlet^ they shall become 
whiter than snowT 


THE SOJOURNERS 


“ TV yT Y father, shall we soon be there? ” 
iVi The man stopped, and shading his eyes with 
his hand, looked long before him into the silver haze. 
They were on the southern bank of a wide valley, 
flanked by deep hills looking wise as greyheaded youth, 
a legion of close comrades, showing no gap in their 
ranks. These hills seemed to breathe ; to sit, looking 
down into the valley, with heads dropped on their 
breasts, and deep overshadowed eyes, that never 
changed, in midst of snow, or sun, or any kind of 
weather; dark brooding lights that knew the secrets 
of the world, watchful, yet kind. Races, ardent with 
longing, had come and gone through the valley, had 
passed the shining porches in the North, on the way 
to the Quiet Country ; and they had never come again, 
though shadows flitted backwards and forwards when 
the mists came down ; visiting spirits, hungering on 
the old trail for some that had dropped by the way. 
As the ages passed, fewer and fewer travelled through 
the Valley — no longer a people or a race, but twos and 
threes, and sometimes a small company, like soldiers 
of a battered guard ; and, oftener still, solitary pilgrims, 
broken with much travel and bowed with loneliness. 
But they always cried out with joy when they beheld, 
far off in the North, at the end of the long trail, this 
range of grey and violet hills break into golden gaps 
with scarlet walls, and rivers of water ride through 


234 


BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


them pleasantly. Then they hurried on to the opal 
haze that hung at the end of the valley — and who 
heard ever of any that wished to leave the Scarlet Hills 
and the Quiet Country beyond ! 

The boy repeated his question, “ My father, shall 
we soon be there ? ” 

The man withdrew his hand from over his eyes, and 
a strange smile came to his lips. 

My son,” he answered, “ can’st thou not see ! 
Yonder through the gentle mist are the Scarlet Hills ; 
our journey is near done.” 

The boy lifted his head, and looked. “ I can see 
nothing but the mist, my father; not the Scarlet Hills. 
I am tired, I would sleep.” 

“ Thou shalt sleep soon. The wise man told us of 
the Delightful Chateau at the gateway of the hills. 
Courage, my son. If I gave thee the golden balls to 
toss, would it cheer thee ? ” 

“ My father, I care not for the golden balls, but if I 
had horse and sword and a thousand men, I would 
take a city.” 

The man laid his hand upon the boy’s shoulder. “ If 
I, my son,” he said, “ had a horse and sword, and a 
thousand men, I would build a city.” 

“ Why dost thou not fly thy falcon, or write thy 
thoughts upon the sand as thou did’st yesterday, my 
father ? ” 

The man loosed the falcon from his wrist, and 
watched it rise. “ My son, I care not for the falcon, 
nor any more for writing on the sands.” 

There was a long silence, and then the lad said : 

“ My father, if thou did’st build a city I would not 
tear it down, but I would keep it with my thousand 
men.” 


THE SOJOURNERS 235 

“ Thou hast well said, my son,” and the man stooped 
and kissed the lad on the forehead. 

They travelled on in silence again, and slowly they 
came to the opal haze, which smelled sweet as floating 
flowers, and gave their hearts a halcyon restfulness. 
And, glancing down at him many times, the father 
saw the lad’s face look serenely wise, without becoming 
old, and his brown hair clustered on his forehead with 
all the life of youth in it. Yet in his eyes, the lad 
seemed as old as himself. 

“ My father,” said the lad again, “ would’st thou 
then build a city ? ” 

And the father answered : “ Nay, my son, I would 
sow seed and gather it into harvest, enough for my 
needs, not more ; and sit quiet in my doorway when my 
work was done, and be grateful to the gods above me.” 

The lad waited a moment, then answered : “ When 
thou wast a governor in our own country, thou had’st 
serfs and retainers without number, and fifty men to 
beat upon the shields of brass to tell of the coming 
through the gates of the King’s house; now thou 
would’st sow a field and sit quiet in thy doorway, like 
the blind seller of seed-cakes ’gainst the temple.” 

“ Even so, my son.” Then he stooped down, 
knelt upon his knees, and kissed the earth solemnly, 
and when he rose there was a smile upon his face. 

Then the lad said : “ When I was the son of a gov- 
ernor I loved to play with the golden balls, to shoot 
at the target for pearls, and to ride the flamingo down ; 
now I would grind the corn which thou did’st reap, 
and with oil make seed-cakes for our supper, and sit 
quiet with thee in thy doorway.” Then he too stooped 
down and kissed the earth, and got up again with a 
smile upon his face. 


236 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


As they went, the earth seemed suddenly to blossom 
anew, the glory of the Scarlet Hills burst upon them, 
they could hear bugles calling far off, and they could 
see giant figures trooping along the hills, all scarlet 
too with streaming hair. And presently, near to a 
lake, there was a great gateway, and perched upon a 
rock near it, a chateau of divine proportions, on which 
was written above the perfect doorway : 

The Keeper of the house awaits thee : Enter into 
Quiet. ’ ’ 

They entered, and were possessed of an incompar- 
able peace. And there came to them an old man of 
noble countenance, with eye neither dimmed nor 
sunken, and cheek dewy as a child’s, and his voice was 
like an organ when it plays the soft thanksgiving of a 
mother. 

“ Why did ye kiss the earth, as ye travelled ? ” he 
said. 

They told him, each with his own tongue, and he 
smiled upon them, and questioned them of all their 
speech by the way, and they answered him all honestly, 
and with gladness, for the searching of their hearts 
was a joy and relief. But he looked most lovingly 
upon the lad. 

“ Would’st thou then, indeed, go to the Quiet 
Country ? ” he asked. 

And the lad answered : “ I have lived so long in the 
noise ! ” 

“ Thou hast learned all, thou hast lived all,” he an- 
swered the boy. “ Beyond the Hills of Scarlet there is 
quiet, and thou shalt dwell there, thou and he. Ye 
have the perfect desire. Go in peace, and know that 
though ye are of different years, as men count time, 
God’s clock strikes the same for both, for both are 


THE SOJOURNERS 237 

of equal knowledge, and have the same desire at 
last.” 

Then, lifting up his hands, he said : “ O children of 
men, O noisy world, when will ye learn the delectable 
way ? ” 

Slowly they all three came from the Chateau, and 
through the great gateway, and passed to the margin 
of the shining lake, and the two stepped into a boat 
that waited for them, of which the rowers were nobly 
fashioned, like the Keeper of the House, and as they 
bowed their heads to a melodious blessing, the boat 
drew away. In the sweet haze they looked transfigured 
and enlarged, majestic figures moving through the 
Scarlet Hills to the Quiet Country. 

The valley through which they had passed was the 
Valley of Death, where the young become old and the 
old young, and all become wise. 


“ I WAS A STRANGER ” 


N the great day of the year in New France — 



that is, St. John the Baptist’s Day — a thing 
came to pass which sent a thrill through the whole 
parish of Pontiac, and touched, not at all remotely,, 
some parishes beyond its borders. This thrill of excite- 
ment and surprise became a pulse of gossip presently,, 
but the first vibration of it was pure human nature. 
It was not a bit sentimental, it was of temperament — 
racial, tribal, primitive. 

The heart of the thing was that Octave Bontemps 
and Zoe Lajoie were to be married. Octave Bon- 
temps, Zoe Lajoie! The very names suggested ro- 
mance. They had the rhythm of verse, they sounded 
well in the ear, they were picturesque. 

Not two hours after the betrothal had been declared, 
Parpon the dwarf had arranged two verses which were 
sung to an old tune that very afternoon of St. John the 
Baptist’s Day. The refrain was — 


“ Chez toi, chez moi, la maison d’or — 
Octave Bontemps, Zoe Lajoie ! ” 


And this was the reason why Pontiac was unusually 
interested: Octave Bontemps and Zoe Lajoie were 
both foundlings. Twenty-two years before. Octave 
had been found one autumn morning, nearly dead with 
cold, on the. steps of the house of the Seigneur : a 
sturdy, well-knit child for all that, coarsely dressed, 
plainly of humble parentage. 


“I WAS A STRANGER” 


239 


Two years later, Zoe Lajoie was found at the door of 
the Cure’s house. As he came from the bedside of a 
dying parishioner, he had stumbled over the basket, 
had stooped in the dark and touched it, and something 
had laughed beneath his hand — such a little laugh of 
comfort and the gay heart, that at the moment the 
Cure lifted up the little bundle of fine linen and silk, 
and tender flesh, finer than silk or any linen, with two 
bright eyes and laughing lips encouraging the kiss he 
put upon the pink forehead, the name Lajoie came to 
his lips ; and Zoe Lajoie the child was called. 

So it had been with Octave Bontemps. When the 
old housekeeper of the Seigneur lifted the half-frozen 
man-child from the little quilt which wrapped it round, 
she said, “ God save my heart, but this is in good 
time ! ” and so Bontemps the child was called. The 
two children were also called Octave and Zoe respec- 
tively, because those were the names of the people in 
whose houses they had been brought up. 

Octave, the foster-father, was a farmer and a horse- 
dealer ; and Zoe, the foster-mother, was a widow who 
had lost a child — the dressmaker and milliner of the 
village. 

The whole parish had contributed to their support 
for a time, but at last the foster-father and the foster- 
mother, having grown fond of the outcasts, treated 
them as if they were their own children, and did by 
them accordingly; and both grew up handsome as 
ever were children in this world. 

The girl was dark, refined, and graceful; quick- 
tempered and passionate, in keeping with her name 
Zoe; full of laughter, lightness, and air, with a little 
undercurrent of melancholy, as befitted the conjunc- 
tion of the names and her own mysterious origin. The 


240 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

boy was light-haired, rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed as any 
Norman or Briton. His nature was full, content, 
strong; and he had a slumberous sort of temper and 
spirit, which seldom sprang above the surface of his 
physical good-nature. He was like some ripe product 
of the field; he seemed when with horses, in the or- 
chard, at the plough, and among the cut grain, like a 
fine union of animal and vegetable life. There was no 
melancholy in him. He was too simple, too uncon- 
scious, too full of sound health. 

He knew his origin and did not mind it. He was 
taunted with it but once, and then he broke a leg and 
arm of the man who took the pains to tell him of it. 
He did it, too, in the sight of the whole village — that is, 
before the little hotel Louis Quinze, at the four cor- 
ners. He was not even reproved for it by the Cure, 
the good M. Fabre. Naturally, the women thought it 
a very admirable display of spirit, and some younger 
women, who, until that day, had not known his history, 
grew romantical and plaintive over it. 

There is nothing that so appeals to the heart of a 
woman as the loneliness of a man. By nature she is 
gregarious, and she only judges men by her judgment 
of herself — that is, when she is primitive, as the women 
of Pontiac were. 

In Octave’s childhood many and many a woman had 
stopped him in the road, and picked him up and kissed 
him because he was lonely. It was nothing to them 
that he did not know he was lonely ; that his mother, 
now living or dead, had abandoned him, was enough 
for them. Long ago they had gone over the character 
of every woman in the parish, and they had not been 
able to lay his existence to anybody’s account. 

Madame Angele, the wife of the village tinsmith. 


“I WAS A STRANGER" 


241 


was both tender-hearted and talkative, and had 
summed the matter up many times. She had said in 
English to Medallion, the English auctioneer : 

“ She is not alive, no — that woman ! If she have 
once look at that chile, he is never to leave her, no. 
Sure, if I have a chile like that, I love him to death. 
He never cry in the night, he have a leetla smile all 
the day, he take the smallpox, and it leave on him just 
one mark — very purty, like a dimple, in his cheek. 
He fall from the roof of the kitchen, an’ he fall soft, and 
break nosing. Ver’ well, he eat — oh, he eat every- 
t’ing, and he smile while he eat all the time. 

“ If a chile eat and have no pain on him, and cry not 
in the night, and laugh all day, and say his prayer, and 
look like a leetla prince all time — ver’ well, that is 
enough, that is a chile for to thank the good God. 
Greshus, if the woman was a wolf, not a woman, she 
would love that chile. 

“ I smaick him once, becos’ he sit down on my bas- 
ket of eggs an’ smaish ’em all to pieces. Ver’ well, I 
would smaick all the saints of heaven if they do that ! ’’ 

Concerning Zoe Lajoie, the milliner, her foster- 
mother (and she spoke for all the good-hearted women 
of Pontiac), said to Medallion: 

“ When she was christen, she just cry sof’ without a 
soun’ — so pitibul, so sweet, that the Cure he say over 
it, ‘ Hush, hush, my leetla dear, here are ten good 
women will be mothers with you when you need ; every 
man will say that joy come with you, and the Church 
will watch the travel of your feet and the way of your 
heart. Hush, my leetla lamb ’ — the Cure speak like 
that. 

“ She is not like any child of Pontiac, she have ways 
,so differen’. When one speak quick an’ angry at her, 


242 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


she get ver’ still, an’ look so steady at you, as if she will 
ask what you mean. Once or a few time she get 
angry, an’ then her eyes snap fire, an’ you see her 
throat all swell, an’ her leetla hands they bang at the air 
— so ! She is kin’ to the other children. She is so 
smart, so — what you call clever, that she is first among 
them all. 

“But one day — well, that one day she leave the 
house all laughing and gay, for there is a feast of the 
good Ste. Anne. She is like a flower, like a leetla imp 
of joy, an’ she dance away — oh, she can dance so sof’, 
so sof’, an’ her body it is slim like a willow rod. Bien: 
in an hour she come back, all pale and col’, an’ her 
hands they hang like the dead at her side. I am sitting 
in the shop all alone, an’ I am thinking that Zoe she is 
sixteen years ole, an’ that ver’ soon someone will come 
to me an’ ask for her. It make me purty sorry. I drop 
a tear on my work, for the trouble of her, it is not so 
much as my love an’ the place she have in my heart, 
the good she is to me. When I wake up in the morn- 
ing there is. Zoe, when I go to sleep at night there is 
Zoe. I have that for sixteen year. You think the 
shop and the dresses and the bonnets is enough. Look : 
a woman needs someone to be sorry for, someone to 
love, someone to fuss for. Alors, I have fuss for Zoe 
Lajoie for sixteen year, an’ now — ! 

“ Just then, that day, I see her standing in the door, 
an’ she look at me so strange, so like a piece of stone. 
‘ What is it, Zoe ? ’ I say. She do not answer, but she 
come up to me, gaze me in the face — ah, her purty 
black eyes! — an’ she say, ‘Tell me, dear mine,’ she 
say — ah, she alway call me cMre mienne ! — ‘ tell me, 
dear mine, are you my aunt? Who was my mother? ’ 

“ I laugh ver’ silly, an’ ‘ Dove ’ I say — I always call 


“I WAS A STRANGER” 243 

her that — ^ Dove/ I say, ‘ I am your aunt/ I have no 
heart enough to tell her the truth. 

“‘My mother was your sister?’ she ask, an’ I 
feel myself go hot and col’, as she look at me. I 
feel for my beads in my pocket, an’ I say, ‘ Yes, dove, 
she was my sister.’ ‘ Tell me about my mother,’ she 
say. 

“ That break my heart, an’ I feel something take me 
by the throat, so I cannot breathe. But I have no 
time to think, so I sit there an’ I tell her a long story — 
you see, it had to be a long — of her mother, an’ a great 
quarrel, an’ how her mother marry a young seigneur, 
an’ how he is not kin’, an’ she get ill, an’ she is afraid 
to come to my fadder or me, an’ so she lay Zoe on the 
Cure’s step, an’ go the hospital at Quebec an’ die. 

“ ‘ Dat is all the truth ? ’ she ask. 

“ ‘ Dat is all,’ I answer. 

“ ‘ Dear mine,’ she say, ‘ I knew that girl out there 
lie. Now, if any one dare say a word to me, I will 
make them sorry.’ 

“ That is her way. When she make up her mind, 
it is just like a wall — it will not move. I am glad of 
that.” 

When the little milliner confessed to the Cure what 
she had told Zoe, the Cure found himself in a quan- 
dary, because his kind heart ached for the child. And 
yet the w^oman had sinned. The humanity in him con- 
doned that which saved the child from a great pain; 
while the priest in him condemned the false thing. 
He compromised by fixing a penance for the milliner 
which occupied her leisure hours for quite three 
months ; and he left the girl ignorant of the truth. In 
doing so he gave himself a penance which made his 


244 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


days sadder for twice as long as the milliner was occu- 
pied with her repentance. 

So Zoe went on her way, and those who knew her 
obscure and humiliating beginning never spoke of it 
to her. And there were many who knew nothing. 
They were the younger folk. Meanwhile the girl 
grew in beauty, in stature, and in grace. She wore the 
habitant dress, like the other girls of the village, yet 
somehow she always touched it off with distinction. 
Her hands were large, but they were fine and firm. 
Her feet were small, and they were slim and graceful, 
and very swift, and she was lithe and sinuous. While 
speaking little, she had a way of saying the right thing 
to everybody, and at the right time. 

When nobody dare go near Farette the miller, by 
reason of his bad temper over domestic infelicities, she 
often sat upon the white bags beside the great door- 
way, and talked to him in her simple, musing sort of 
way, as if unconscious that their minds had little in 
common. 

Now and again her eyes would shine with merri- 
ment, and her lips burst with laughter, and any one 
who heard her laugh seldom forgot it. It was not 
cultured, or toned to the note of a drawing-room, but 
it was silvery, impetuous, and gaily loud. Once at 
the convent, where she had been educated, her teacher 
— who spoke both English and French, said that her 
laugh was vulgar. This was when she was not more 
than eight years old. The next time she laughed, she 
immediately reproved herself, saying, “ Now I am 
vuglar! ” 

As she grew older, she cherished this mispronuncia- 
tion, and whenever she did wrong or was reproved she 
said, “ Now I am vuglar! ” When Octave Bontemps 


^‘I WAS A STRANGER.” 


245 


first told her bluntly, confusedly, yet with a manly 
eagerness, of his love, she laughed in his face ; and then 
she said, immediately repenting, “ Now I am vuglar! ” 
Whereupon she caught his hand, seeing that she had 
hurt him, and begged him to forgive her. The truth 
was, she was so taken aback that her laugh was more 
nervous than humorous or unkind. 

Octave told her his love a second time. This was 
one day when he picked her up in the road by the 
river, and drove her home upon his bags of meal. She 
told him now that she could not, that she did not wish 
to marry. Yet once again he asked her, and that was 
one very happy morning when they had both been to 
Mass, and with the little milliner Zoe had wandered 
off into the maple woods, picking the yellow mandrake 
apples by the way, speaking more freely and gaily 
than she had done for weeks and weeks. 

There never was such a colour as covered her cheek 
that day : she was like some flower that turned to the 
sun and drew in the air and light, giving it out again 
in fragrance and in beauty. It is possible that the 
little milliner was in the secret, and, with charming de- 
ception, remained behind to rest, while the girl went on 
and picked the flag-flowers growing by the little 
stream which flowed into the larger river beyond. 
As Zoe stretched her arm out to get a tall flower, 
springing from a boggy bit of ground, an arm sud- 
denly stretched out beyond hers, a shoulder touched 
her own, and in an instant the fine purple beauty was 
put into her hands by Octave Bontemps. She was 
startled, she was pleased, she was bewildered — she was 
beloved. There and then his words blundered forth, 
and with a burst of impulsive consent she threw her 
two arms round his neck, and took his kiss with eyes 


246 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


that wept and laughed at the same instant. But an in- 
stant after, woman-like, as if repenting of her loving 
forwardness, she said in her old gay formula of self- 
condemnation, “ Now I am vuglar! ” 

This was on the eve of St. John the Baptist’s Day, 
and on the day itself the parish was agog about it, and 
Parpon made up his song : 

“ My home, thy home, dear house of gold — 

Octave Bontemps, Zoe Lajoie ! ” 


That night candles burned in every window, and there 
was a procession upon the water — a hundred boats or 
more, winding, like a sinuous living thing upon the 
stream — in honour of the patron saint of the province. 

In one boat was Octave Bontemps and a dozen of his 
friends, and in a long Indian canoe was Zoe Lajoie, 
with the little milliner. Zoe paddled deftly, the blade 
clipping the water with smooth precision ; and when, 
at last, her boat was approached by that of Octave, all 
who saw struck up the song Parpon had made. Blush- 
ing, Octave bowed right and left, and waved his hand 
in pleasure. Zoe merely gave Octave a low greeting 
and good-night, and turning her canoe round, paddled 
down the stream swiftly, getting well away from the 
others. At last Zoe sent the boat into the shore at a 
point of the Cure’s garden from which they could see 
the myriad candles in the windows of the village, and 
the fires burning in the cranes at the bows of the boats ; 
the pine torches, the lanterns, the links, the lights from 
which, trembling and glowing in the shadows of the 
pine woods on the banks, made the night shine with 
living fires. They watched it all in silence for some 
time, and then the little milliner said softly in French : 

Are you very happy, dove ? ” 


“I WAS A STRANGER” 247 

“ Yes, if it is so that happiness also makes you a 
little sad somehow, dear mine.” 

“ Yes, that is always so.” 

“ Why is it so? ” 

“ It is because when you come to some new joy, you 
leave some old joy behind, dove.” 

‘‘ What have I left behind ? ” 

“ That peace which is with not knowing love — the 
first love of a life.” 

“ Dear mine, I don’t think that is the cause with 
me — not altogether.” 

“ What else could it be ? ” asked the faded, worn lit- 
tle milliner anxiously, for all at once she felt a sudden 
sinking at her heart — who could tell of what Zoe might 
be thinking? One thing always haunted her since she 
had told Zoe the lie which had never been replaced by 
the truth: the truth might come out! Yet it always 
had seemed so safe, for Zoe had believed her and there 
was an end of it! 

But to-night there was a hovering sense of premoni- 
tion in the air. “ What else could it be, dove ? ” she 
asked again. 

At that moment voices sounded near them from the 
Cure’s garden. They came nearer. Zoe made a mo- 
tion towards her paddle, but stopped short on hearing 
her own name. The Cure was speaking. 

“ She is called Zoe Lajoie ; she has had a happy, if 
humble home, and she is to be married soon.” The 
Cure’s voice was very grave and kind. 

A strange voice answered. 

Oh ! Does the man know — the man who is to 
marry her ? ” 

“ Yes, yes ! He also was a foundling.” 

“ Perhaps of even more unconventional origin than 


248 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

the girl’s — eh ? ” said the stranger again. There was a 
note of sarcasm in the tone. 

“ Perhaps,” the Cure answered austerely. 

Zoe sat as still as death. The little milliner trem- 
bled, and rocked back and forth in dumb misery. 

“Well, then, there’s little need to interfere — eh? 
Both are dead. The few thousand francs her father 
left her I’ll send to you, and you can hand it to her — 
‘ A gift for a good girl from her papa ’ — eh, Monsieur 
le Cure?” 

Zoe did not hear the priest’s words in reply, but she 
caught the reproving coldness of his tone as the two 
walked on. 

Then Zoe turned to the little milliner, who was 
shrunk to a little heap in the stern of the canoe, and 
coming near, she spoke in a voice of such bitterness, 
anger, and passion, that at the first sound her foster- 
mother cowered down. 

“You lied to me!” she said. “You lied to me! 
Ah, do 3^ou know what you have done ? You’ve killed 
me. If I’d have known the truth I’d have lived dif- 
ferent, been different. If I’d known the truth I’d — 
I’d have been dead long ago. Now I learn it just 
when I’ve found out the only thing worth living for — 
ah, how I hate you ! You lied to me. You gave me 
a mother, and now she’s been taken away from me — 
all by your lying ! ” She paused in the fury of her 
words, and the little milliner raised her head. 

“ I loved you, dove,” she answered. “ You were 
like my very own, and — and I wanted to spare you. 
I’ve done a long penance for the lie. Ah, dove, don’t 
turn against me. I love you, indeed I do — indeed ! ” 

All at once the girl’s passion stilled. She stooped 
and touched the woman’s shoulder kindly. 


“I WAS A STRANGER” 249 

“ Poor dear mine ! ” she said. “ Perhaps you 
couldn’t help it. Let us go — home ! ” 

Then she turned wearily to the paddle, picked it up, 
and with quiet strokes drove the canoe up the river to 
where the candles flickered in the windows of the mil- 
liner’s little house on the bank. 

Next morning the voice which had called Zoe Lajoie 
from sleep to the waking world every sunrise, called in 
vain. Her place was empty. The little milliner closed 
her shop that day and mourned and wept, and all the 
village knew that Zoe Lajoie had run away from home, 
because she had come to know she was a foundling. 

On the third day a letter came to her foster-mother, 
dated at Montreal, which said, and said only — 

“ Chhre mienncy — Do not look for me. Tell Octave he can do 
better than to fret. I would not shame him by marrying him. I 
love you, dear mine, but it is better that I go. — Thy poor 

“ Zofe Lajoie.” 

To Octave there came no word. He waited a 
month — hoping, sickening, losing his colour and his 
flesh, and drawing to him the sympathy of every kind 
heart in the parish. This last was hardest for him to 
bear. 

One day he set forth to find her. His foster-father 
said to him at the last — 

“ See you, my Octave, you are a fool, but you have 
been a good boy, and you shall have all the money 
you need. But you must come back. Be off with you 
now, my Octave, and never walk when you can ride. 
Here’s money for you ! ” 


. It was the old story of hunting the lost. From town 


250 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

to town, from village to village he travelled, searching, 
and not finding — an intent, warm-faced, silent man, 
who never spoke, save to ask questions, who never 
smiled for months, save one day, when sick and dis- 
heartened he stood abstractedly watching the traffic in 
the streets of Quebec. His attention was presently 
attracted by a dog hunting for its owner. He saw it 
run from door to door, then, baffled, hurry along the 
pavement, backwards and forwards, this side of the 
street and that side. At last it recovered the scent, and 
then it ran swiftly, nose to the ground, never shifting 
until it stopped at a door which it had passed a half- 
dozen times before, and began scratching at it. 

Octave smiled. How stupid he had been ! He went 
back to Pontiac, got Zoe’s terrier, which had followed 
her and loved her for five years, and then he began his 
search anew, going from city to city — for he had 
searched the villages well before, and everybody in 
them knew everybody else. Sometimes it crossed his 
mind that she might have left the country and gone to 
some big city of the United States; but he put that 
from him, and with blind faith went on his way through 
the French province, patient and persistent. 

One day as he passed through the market-place of 
Quebec city, the dog barked and sprang away from 
him. He followed hard, looking about sharply; but 
the face he hoped to see he did not find. Presently 
he came up with the dog, which had stopped, be- 
wildered. It whined pitifully, and he hastened back 
with it the way they had come. Presently the terrier 
rushed upon the scent, and they wound in and out of 
the crowd into a narrow street. 

Here there was another break, but at last the trail 
was again taken up, and now the dog led the man 


“I WAS A STRANGER’’ 251 

straight to a door which he had passed a score of times 
— a tailor’s shop. 

Here, in a little back room, he found Zoe Lajoie, 
and without a word she came out from her staring 
fellow-workpeople and followed him into the street. 
He led her to the Cathedral, and sitting down on a 
bench just outside the door, they were silent for a mo- 
ment. The girl broke silence first, as it is ever 
the woman’s lot to do the hardest thing, in all events 
of the affections. 

“ Why have you come, Octave ? ” she said. 

“ I have come to bring my wife home,” he answered. 

“ Your wife ! ” she said, a little bitterly, a little softly, 
for his words were the words of possession; yet, too, 
they were the words of a simple nature which would go 
straight to the truth, and cleave to it. 

“ It was just the same,” he answered. “ I had got to 
think of you that way ; I’d kissed you ” (she trembled) ; 

I’d planned to do things with you ; I’d sworn on my 
crucifix to be a good husband to you. That’s the way 
I feel — but yes, that’s it ! ” 

“ I’m nobody ! ” she said ; “ you know that — a girl 
whose mother left her to die — yes, to die ! Who knows 
what my mother was ! And for eighteen years I’ve 
lived there in Pontiac, and everybody knew I had no 
name, and nothing — nothing at all ! ” 

There was no passion, no tears now; only passive, 
heart-breaking acceptance of a bitterness that poisoned 
a life. 

“Well, well, Zoe, who am I? The same. Who 
dares say anything against me? Nobody. In Pontiac 
everybody loves you. When you’re my wife, every- 
body will be happy. The Cure and all told me to say 
to you, that if you didn’t come back they’d fancy you 


252 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

thought they hadn’t been kind to you and loved you. 
When you were christened ten women promised the 
Cure they’d be a mother to you, when you needed 
them. And the milliner, Madame Beaufond — ah, 
there you are not kind, no ” 

“ The dear mine ! The dear mine ! ” interposed Zoe 
softly. “ Does she care so much ? ” 

“ She will not live long ; she has a bad cold, con- 
sumption, I think,” answered Octave. In this his 
imagination had a flight, but Zoe was the only person 
concerned in this excess, and she would probably for- 
give him in time. 

“ You won’t leave her alone any longer, will you? ” 
urged Octave. “ And me — the farm needs me. My 
— father — needs me ” (he said father slowly and for a 
purpose), “ and I can’t do right by either if you don’t 
do right by me.” 

“ Do right? ” she faltered. 

“ Come back with me. If we’re happy together, 
what need we care for all the world? And, Zoe, if 
you and I feel lonely sometimes when we remember, 
can’t we comfort each other better than any one 
else?” 

“ You think it’s right for a woman that’s got no 
name ” 

“ One name between us is enough,” he interrupted, 
with a little laugh, for he saw the end of it all now. 

“You don’t mind my being vuglar, then?” she 
asked, with a tearful smile, lifting her head from his 
shoulder. 

“ I’m more vuglar” he answered, laughing ; and he 
kissed her again. 

The verger came out of the Cathedral door, but, see- 
ing them, with a touch of nice courtesy hurriedly 


WAS A STRANGER’^ 25s 

turned and went back again, saying to himself, No 
place for me — a little delicate affair, that ! ” 

A child grinned vaguely round a corner, but they did 
not see him ; a white pigeon cooed down at them as 
they passed under the arch of the Cathedral doorway, 
where it perched, but they did not know. They only 
knew that they had found each other again. God has 
no foundlings, and in a simple way they came to feel it. 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 

i 

cGILVRAY has been dead for over a hundred 



IV A years, but there is a parish in Quebec where 
his tawny-haired descendants still live. They have the 
same sort of freckles on their faces as had their ances- 
tor, the band-master of Anstruther’s Regiment, and 
some of them have his taste for music, yet none of 
them speak his language or with his brogue, and the 
name of McGilvray has been gallicised to Magille. 

In Pontiac one of the Magilles, the fiddler of the 
parish, made the following verse in English as a tribute 
of admiration for an heroic deed of his ancestor, of 
which the .Cure of the parish, the good M. Fabre, had 
told him. 


“ Piff ! poum ! kazoon, kazoon ! 

That is the way of the organ tune — 
And the ships are save that day ! 

Piff ! poum ! kazoon, kazoon ! 

And the A’miral light his pipe and say ; 
‘ Bully for us, we are not kill ! 

Who is it make the organ play — 

Make it say zoon-kazoon ? 

You with the corunet come this way — 
You are the man, Magille ! 

Piff ! poum ! kazoon, kazoon ! ’ ” 


Now this is the story of McGilvray the band-master. 
It was at the time of the taking of Quebec, the sum- 
mer of 1759. The English army had lain at Mont- 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 255 


morenci at the Island of Orleans, and at Point Levis ; 
the English fleet lay in the basin opposite the town, 
since June of that great year, attacking and retiring, 
bombarding and besieging. To no great purpose. 
For within the walls of the city, and on the shore of 
Beauport, protected by its mud flats — a splendid moat 
— the French more than held their own. 

In all the hot months of that summer, when parishes 
were ravaged with fire and sword and the heat was 
an excuse for any lapse of virtue, McGilvray had not 
been drunk once — not once. It was almost unnatural. 
Previous to that McGilvray’s career had been check- 
ered. No man had received so many punishments 
in the whole army, none had risen so superior to them 
as had he, none had ever been shielded from wrath 
present and to come as had this band-master of An- 
struther’s Regiment. He had no rivals for promotion 
in the regiment — perhaps that was one reason ; he had 
a good temper and an overwhelming spirit of fun — per- 
haps that was another. 

He was not remarkable to the vision — scarcely more 
than five feet four ; with an eye like a gimlet, red hair 
tied in a queue, a big mouth, and a chest thrown out 
like the breast of a partridge — as fine a figure of a man 
in miniature as you could see. When intoxicated his 
tongue rapped out fun and fury like a trip-hammer. 
Alert-minded drunk or sober, drunk he was lightning- 
tongued. He could play as well drunk as sober, too, 
and more than once a sympathetic officer altered the 
tactics that McGilvray might not be compelled to 
march and so expose his condition. Standing still, he 
was quite fit for duty. He never really got drunk “ at 
the top.” His brain was always clear, no matter how 
useless were his legs. 

9 


256 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

But the wonderful thing was that for six months 
McGilvray’s legs were as steady as his head was right. 
At first the regiment was unbelieving, and his resolu- 
tion to drink no more was scoffed at in the non-com. 
mess. He stuck to it, however, and then the cause 
was searched for — and not found. He had not turned 
religious, he was not fanatical, he was of sound mind 
— what was it? When the sergeant-major suggested 
a woman, they howled him down, for McGilvray had 
made love to women since the day of his weaning, and 
had drunk consistently all the time. 

Yet it was a woman. 

A fortnight or so after Wolfe’s army and Saunder’s 
fleet had sat down before Quebec, McGilvray, having 
been told by a sentry at Montmorenci, where An- 
struther’s Regiment was camped, that a French girl 
on the other side of the stream had kissed her hand 
to him and sung across in laughing insolence, “ Mal- 
brouk s’en va fen giterre,” he had forthwith set out to 
hail this daughter of Gaul, if perchance she might be 
seen again. 

At more than ordinary peril he crossed the river on 
a couple of logs, lashed together, some distance above 
the spot where the picket had seen Mademoiselle. It 
was a moonlight night, and he might easily have been 
picked off by a bullet, if a wary sentry had been mur- 
derously inclined. But the truth was that many of 
these pickets on both sides were not unfriendly to each 
other, and sometimes exchanged tobacco and liquor 
across the stream. As it chanced, however, no sentry 
saw McGilvray, and presently, safely landed, he made 
his way down the river. Even at the distance he was 
from the falls, the rumble of them came up the long 
walls of firs and maples with a strange, half moaning 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 257 


sound — all else was still, most still. He came down 
until he was opposite the spot where his English picket 
was posted, and then he halted and surveyed his 
ground. 

Nothing human in sight, no sound of life, no sign of 
habitation. At this moment, however, his stupidity 
in thus rushing into danger, the foolishness of pur- 
suing a woman whom he had never seen — and a 
Frenchwoman at that, the punishment that would be 
meted out to him by his colonel if his adventure were 
discovered, the sudden reflection that the wench was 
probably no more amusing than hundreds of other 
wenches whom it had not given nearly so much trouble 
to find — all these came to him. 

They stunned him for a moment, and then presently, 
as if in defiance of his own thought, he began to sing 
softly, “ Malbroiik s’en va fen guerre” 

Suddenly, in one confused moment, he was seized, 
and a hand was clapped over his mouth. Three French 
soldiers had him in their grip: stalwart fellows they 
were, of the Regiment of Bearn. He had no strength 
to cope with them ; he at once saw the futility of crying 
out, so he played the eel and tried to slip from the 
grasp of his captors. But though he gave the trio an 
awkward five minutes, he was at last entirely over- 
come, and was carried away in triumph through the 
woods. More than once they passed a sentry, and 
more than once camp fires round which soldiers slept 
or dozed. Now and again one would raise his head, 
and with a laugh, or a Sacrf bleu! ” drop back into 
comfort again. 

After about ten minutes’ walk he was brought to a 
small wooden house, the door was thrown open, he 
was tossed inside, and the soldiers entered after. The 


258 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

room was empty save for a bench, some shelves, a 
table on which a lantern burned, and a rude crucifix 
on the wall. 

McGilvray sat down on the bench, and in five 
minutes his feet were shackled, and a chain, fastened 
to a staple in the wall, held him in secure captivity. 

“ How you like yourself now? ’’ said a huge French 
corporal who had learned English from a girl at St. 
Malo years before. 

“ If you’d tie a bit o’ pink ribbon round me neck. I’d 
die wid pride,” said McGilvray, at the same time 
spitting on the ground in defiance. 

The big corporal laughed, and told his comrades 
what the band-master had said. One of them grinned, 
but the other frowned surlily and asked : 

“ Avez-vous du tabacf ” 

“ Havey you to-bac-co ? ” interpreted the big cor- 
poral. 

“ Not for a Johnny Crapaud like you, and put that 
in yer pipe and shmoke it ! ” said McGilvray, winking 
at the big fellow and spitting on the ground before 
the surly one, who made a motion as if he would 
bayonet McGilvray where he sat. 

“ He shall die — the cursed English soldier,” said 
Johnny Crapaud. 

“ Some other day will do,” said McGilvray. 

“ What does he say? ” asked Johnny Crapaud. 

“ He says he’ll give each of us three pounds of 
tobacco if we let him go,” answered the corporal. 

McGilvray knew by the corporal’s voice that he 
was lying, and he also knew that somehow he had 
made a friend. 

“ Y’are lyin’, me darlin’, me boilin’ beauty ! ” inter- 
posed McGilvray. 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 259 

“ If we don’t take him to headquarters now, he’ll 
send across and get the tobacco,” interpreted the cor- 
poral to Johnny Crapaud. 

“ If he doesn’t get the tobacco we’ll hang him for a 
spy,” said Johnny Crapaud, turning on his heel. 

“ Do we all agree ? ” said the corporal. 

The other two nodded their heads, and as they went 
out, McGilvray said after them: 

“ I’ll dance a jig on yer sepulchrees, ye swobs!” 
and he spat on the ground again in defiance. 

Johnny Crapaud turned to the corporal. 

“ I’ll kill him very dead,” said he, “ if that tobacco 
doesn’t come. You tell him so,” he added, jerking a 
thumb toward McGilvray. “ You tell him so.” 

The corporal stayed when the others went out, and, 
in broken English, told McGilvray so. 

“ I’ll play a hornpipe to him whin his gory shroud 
is round him,” said McGilvray. 

The corporal grinned from ear to ear. “ You like 
a chew tabac ? ” said he, pulling out a dirty knob of 
black plug. 

McGilvray had found a man after his own heart. 

“ Sing a song a-sixpence ! ” said he. “ What sort’s 
that for a gintleman an’ a corporal, too? Feel in me 
trousies pockit,” said he, “ which is fur me frinds 
foriver.” 

McGilvray now had hopes of getting free; but if 
he had not taken a fancy to “ me baby corporal,” as 
he called the Frenchman, he would have made escape 
impossible, by insulting him and every one of them as 
quick as winking. 

After the corporal had emptied one pocket, “ Now 
the other, man-o-wee-wee ! ” said McGilvray, and 
presently the two were drinking what the flask from 


26 o born with a golden spoon 


the “ trousies pockit ” contained ; and so well did Mc- 
Gilvray work upon the Frenchman’s bonhomie that the 
corporal promised him he should escape. Then he 
explained how McGilvray should be freed — that at 
midnight some one would come and release him, while 
he, the corporal, was with his companions, so avoid- 
ing suspicion as to his own complicity. McGilvray 
and the corporal were to meet again and exchange 
courtesies after the manner of brothers — if the fortunes 
of war permitted. 

Then McGilvray was left alone. To wile away the 
time he began to whistle to himself ; and what with 
whistling, and what with winking and talking to the 
lantern on the table and calling himself painful names, 
he endured his captivity well enough. 

It was near midnight when the lock turned in the 
door, and presently stepped inside — a girl. 

“ Malbroiik s'en va fen guerre said she, and nodded 
her head at him humourously. 

By this McGilvray knew that here was the maid 
that had got him into all this trouble. At first he was 
inclined to say so, but she came nearer, and one look 
of her black eyes changed all that. 

“ You’ve a way wid you, me darlin’,” said McGil- 
vray, not thinking that she might understand. 

‘‘ A leetla way of my own,” she answered in broken 
English. 

McGilvray stared. “ Where did you learn it ? ” he 
asked, for he had had two surprises that night. 

Of my mother — at St. Malo,” she replied. “ She 
was half English — of Jersey. You are a naughty boy,” 
she added with a little gurgle of laughter in her throat. 
“ You are not a good soldier to go a-chase of the 
French girls ’cross of the river.” 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 261 


“ Shure Pm fiot a good soldier thin. Music’s me 
game. An’ the band of Anstruther’s Rigimint’s mine.” 

“ You can play tunes on a drum? ” she asked, mis- 
chievously. 

‘‘ There’s wan I’d play to the voice av you,” he said, 
in his softest brogue. “ You’ll be unloosin’ me, 
darlin’ ? ” he added. 

She stooped to undo the shackles on his ankles. As 
she did so, he leaned over as if to kiss her. She threw 
back her head in disgust. 

“ You have been drink,” she said,, and she stopped 
her work of freeing him. 

“ What’d wet your eye — no more ! ” he answered. 

She stood up. “ I will not,” she said, pointing to the 
shackles, “ if you drink some more — nevare some more 
— nevare ! ” 

“ Divil a drop thin, darlin’, till we fly our flag 
yander,” pointing towards where he supposed the town 
to be. 

“Not till then?” she asked with a merry little 
sneer. “ Ver’ well, it is comme ca! ” She held out her 
hand. Then she burst into a soft laugh, for his hands 
were tied. 

“ Let me kiss it,” he said bending forward. 

“ No, no, no,” she said. “ We will shake our hands 
after,” and she stooped and took off the shackles and 
freed his arms. 

“ Now, if you like,” she said, and they shook hands 
as McGilvray stood up and threw out his chest. But 
try as he would to look important, she was still an 
inch taller than he. 

A few moments later they were hurrying quietly 
through the woods to the river. There was no speak- 
ing. There were only the escaping prisoner and the 


262 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


gay-hearted girl speeding along in the night, the 
mumbling of the quiet cascade in their ears, the shift- 
ing moon playing hide and seek with the clouds. They 
came out on the bank a distance above where Mc- 
Gilvray had landed, and the girl paused and spoke in 
a whisper. 

‘‘ It is more hard now,” she said. “ Here is a boat, 
and I must paddle — you would go to splash ! Sit still 
and be good.” 

She loosed the boat into the current gently, and, 
holding it, motioned to him to enter. 

“ You’re goin’ to row me over ? ” he asked incredu- 
lously. 

“ ’Sh ! Get in,” she said. 

“ Shtrike me crazy, no ! ” said McGilvray. “ Divil a 
step will I go. Let me that sowed the storm take the 
whirlwind ” — and he threw out his chest. 

“ What is it you come here for ? ” she asked, with 
meaning. 

“ Yourself an’ the mockin’ bird in yer voice,” he 
answered. 

“ Then that is enough,” she said ; “ you come for 
me, I go for you. Get in.” 

A moment afterwards, taking advantage of the ob- 
scured moon, they were carried out on the current, 
going diagonally down the stream and coming quickly 
to that point on the shore where an English picket was 
placed. They had scarcely touched the shore when 
the click of a musket was heard, and a ^^Qui va la?” 
came from the thicket. 

McGilvray gave the password, and presently he was 
on the bank saluting the sentry he had left three hours 
before. 

Malbrouk s’en va t’en guerre! ” said the girl again 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 263 

with a gay insolence, and pushed the boat out into the 
stream. 

“ A minnit ! A minnit, me darlin’,’’ said McGilvray. 

“ Keep your promise,” came back softly. 

“ Ah, come back wan minnit ! ” 

“ Do you love me. Irishman ? ” she said, in a loud 
whisper. 

“ A brazen flirt ! ” said the sentry. 

“ You will pay for that,” called the girl to the sentry, 
with quick anger. “ Do you love me. Irishman? ” she 
added to McGilvray. 

“ I do ! Aw, wurra, wurra, I do ! ” said McGilvray. 

Then you come and get me by ze front door of ze 
city,” said she, and a couple of quick strokes sent her 
canoe out into the dusky middle of the stream, and she 
was soon lost to view. 

“ Aw, the loike o’ that ! Aw, the foine av her — aw, 
the tip-top lass o’ the whole wurrld ! ” he said. 

“ You’re a damn fool, an’ there’ll be trouble from 
this,” said the sentry. 

And so there was trouble, for two hours later the 
sentry was found dead — picked off by a bullet from the 
other shore when he showed himself in the moonlight ; 
and from that hour all friendliness between the pickets 
of the English and the French ceased on the Mont- 
morenci. 

But the one witness to McGilvray’s adventure was 
dead, and that was why no man knew wherefore it was 
that McGilvray took an oath to drink no more till they 
captured Quebec. 

From May to September McGilvray kept to his 
resolution. But for all that time he never saw the 
tip-top lass o’ the wide wurrld.” A time came, how- 
ever, when McGilvray’s last state was worse than his 


264 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

first, and that was the evening before the day Quebec 
was taken. A dozen prisoners had been captured in a 
sortie from the Isle of Orleans to the mouth of the 
St. Charles River. Among these prisoners was the 
grinning corporal who had captured McGilvray and 
then released him. 

Two strange things happened. The big, grinning 
corporal escaped from captivity the same night, and 
McGilvray, as a non-com. said, “ got blind drunk.” 

This is one explanation of the two things. Mc- 
Gilvray had assisted the French corporal to escape. 
The other explanation belongs to the end of the story. 
In any case, McGilvray “ got blind drunk,” and “ was 
making space ” through the camp. In the end he was 
arrested for assisting a prisoner to escape and for being 
drunk and disorderly. The band of Anstruther's 
Regiment boarded H.M.S. Leostaif without him, to 
proceed up the river stealthily with the rest of the 
fleet to Cap Rouge, from whence the last great effort 
of the heroic Wolfe to effect a landing was to be made. 
McGilvray, still intoxicated but intelligent, watched 
them go in silence. 

As General Wolfe was about to enter the boat which 
was to convey him to the flagship, he saw McGilvray, 
who was waiting under guard to be taken to Major 
Hardy’s post at Point Levis. The General knew him 
well, and looked at him half-sadly, half-sternly. 

“ I knew you were free with drink, McGilvray,” he 
said, but I did not think you were a traitor to your 
country, too.” 

McGilvray saluted, and did not answer. 

“ You might have waited till after to-morrow, man,” 
said the General, his eye flashing. “ My soldiers should 
have good music to-morrow.” 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 265 

McGilvray saluted again, but made no answer. 

As if with a sudden thought, the General waved off 
the officers near him, and beckoned McGilvray to him. 

“ I can understand the drink in a bad soldier,” he 
said, “ but you helped a prisoner to escape. Come, 
man, we may both be dead to-morrow, and I’d like to 
feel that no soldier in my army is wilfully an enemy of 
his country.” 

He did the same for me whin I was taken prisoner, 
yer Excillincy ; an’ — an’ yer Excillincy, ’twas a matter 
of a woman, too.” 

The General’s face relaxed a little. “ Tell me the 
whole truth,” said he. McGilvray told him all. 

“ Ah, yer Excillincy,” he burst out at last, “ I was 
no traitor at heart, but a fool I always was ! Yer Ex- 
cillincy, court-martial and death’s no matter to me, but 
I’d like to play wan toon agin to lead the byes to- 
morrow ! Wan toon, yer Excillincy ! an’ I’ll be da- 
cintly shot before the day’s over, on me honour! 
Ah, yer Excillincy, wan toon more, and to be wid the 
byes followin’ the Gineral.” 

The General’s face relaxed still more. 

“ I take you at your word,” said he, and he gave 
orders that McGilvray should proceed at once aboard 
the flagship, whence he should join Anstruther’s Regi- 
ment at Cap Rouge. 

The General entered one boat, and McGilvray fol- 
lowed with some non-com. officers in another. It was 
now quite dark, and their motions or the motions of 
the vessels of war could not be seen from the French 
encampment or the citadel. They neared the flagship, 
and the General, followed by his officers, boarded her. 
l 7 hen the men in McGilvray’s boat climbed up the side 
also, until only himself and another were left. 


256 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

At that moment the General, looking down from the 
side of the ship, said sharply to an officer beside him, 
“ What’s that, sir ? ” 

He pointed to a dark object floating near the ship, 
from which presently came a small light with a hissing 
sound. 

“ It’s a fire-organ, sir,” was the reply. 

A fire-organ was a raft carrying long tubes like the 
pipes of an organ, and filled with explosives. The 
little light which the General saw was the burning fuse. 
The raft had been brought out into the current by 
French sailors, the fuse had been lighted, and it was 
headed to drift toward the British ships. The fleet 
was now in motion, and, apart from the havoc which 
the bursting fire-organ might make, the light from the 
explosion would reveal the fact that the English men- 
o’-war were now moving towards Cap Rouge, and 
Wolfe’s secret design would be defeated. 

McGilvray had seen the fire-organ at the same mo- 
ment as the General. “ Get up the side,” he said to the 
remaining soldier in his boat. 

McGilvray caught the oars and was instantly away 
towards the raft. The General, looking over the ship’s 
side, understood his daring purpose. In the shadow, 
they saw him near it, they saw him throw a boat-hook 
and catch it, and then attach a rope ; they saw him sit 
down and, taking the oars, laboriously row up stream 
toward the opposite shore, the fuse burning softly 
somewhere among the great pipes of explosives. 

For some minutes those on deck watched and lis- 
tened. Presently nothing could be seen, not even the 
small glimmer from the burning fuse. 

Then, all at once, there was a terrible report, and 
the organ-pipes belched their dreadful music upon the 


THE TUNE McGILVRAY PLAYED 267 

sea. Within the circle of light that the explosion 
made there was no sign of any ship, but strangely 
tall in the red glare stood McGilvray in his boat. An 
instant he stood so, then he fell, and presently darkness 
covered the scene — the furious music of death and war 
was over. 

There was silence on the ship for a time as all 
watched and waited. Presently an officer said to the 
General : 

“ I am afraid he’s gone, sir.” 

“ Send a boat to search,” was the reply. “ If he is 
dead — ” the General took off his hat — “ we will, please 
God, remember him within the French citadel to- 
morrow.” 

But McGilvray was alive, and in half an hour he was 
brought aboard the flagship safe and sober. The 
General praised him for his courage, and told him that 
the charge against him should be withdrawn. 

“ You’ve wiped all out, McGilvray,” said the Gen- 
eral. We see you are no traitor.” 

“ Only a fool of a band-master who wanted wan 
toon more, yer Excillincy,” said McGilvray. 

“ Beware drink — women,” answered the General. 

The next day Quebec was taken, and McGilvray 
went in at the head of his men playing “ The Men of 
Harlech.” Three days later he met in the streets the 
woman who had nearly been the cause of his undoing. 

Indignation threw out his chest. 

“ It’s you, thin,” he said, and he tried to look scorn- 
fully at her. 

“ Have you keep your promise ? ” she said, hardly 
above her breath. 

“ What’s that to you ? ” he asked, his eyes firing up. 
7 I got drunk the night afther I set your husband free 


268 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 


— afther he tould me you was his wife. We’re aven 
now, decaiver ! I saved him, and the divil give you joy 
of that salvation — and that husband, say I ! ” 

“ Hoosban’ ! ” she exclaimed, “ who was my hoos- 
ban’?” 

“ The big, grinning corporal,” he answered. 

“ He died of his wound this morning,” she said, with 
a touching sigh, “ and he was — nevare — my hoosban’.” 

“ He said he was,” replied McGilvray, eagerly. 

“ He was always a liar,” she answered. 

“ He decaived you too, thin ? ” asked McGilvray, his 
face growing red. 

She did not answer, but all at once a change came 
over her, the half-mocking smile left her lips, tears 
suddenly ran down her cheeks, and without a word 
she turned and hurried into a little street and was lost 
to view, leaving McGilvray amazed and confounded. 

It was days before he found her again, and three 
things only that they said are of any moment here. 

“ W e’ll lave the past behind us,” he said, '' an’ the 
Pit below for me if I’m not a good husband t’ye ! ” 

“ You will not drink any more? ” she asked, putting 
a hand on his shoulder. 

“ Not till the Frenchies take Quebec again,” he 
answered. 


THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 


H e lay where he could see her working at the forge. 
As she worked she sang : 

“ When God was making the world, 

(Swift is the wind and white is the fire) 

The feet of his people danced the stars ; 

There was laughter and swinging bells, 

And clanging iron and breaking breath. 

The hammers of heaven making the hills, 

The valleys, on the anvil of God. 

(Wild is the fire and low is the wind.) ” 


His eyes were shining, and his face had a pale radi- 
ance from the reflected light, though he lay in the 
shadow where he could watch her, while she could not 
see him. Now her hand was upon the bellows, and the 
low, white fire seethed hungrily up, and set its teeth 
upon the iron she held; now it turned the iron about 
upon the anvil, and the sparks showered about her very 
softly and strangely. There was a cheerful gravity in 
her motions, a high, fine look in her face. 

They two lived alone in the solitudes of Megalong 
Valley. 

It was night now, and the pleasant gloom of the 
valley was not broken by any sound save the hum of 
the stream near by, and the song, and the ringing anvil. 
But into the workshop came the moist, fragrant smell 
of the acacia and the sandal, and a long brown lizard 


270 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

stretched its neck sleepily across the threshold of the 
door opening into the valley. 

The song went on : 

“ When God had finished the world 
(Bright was the fire and sweet was the wind) 

Up from the valleys came song, 

To answer the morning stars, 

And the hand of man on the anvil rang, ' ' ' 

His breath was big in his breast, his life 
Beat strong on the walls of the world. 

(Glad is the wind and tall is the fire.) ” 

He put his hands to his eyes, and took them away 
again, as if to make sure that the song was not a dream. 
Wonder grew upon his thin, bearded face, he ran his 
fingers through his thick hair in a dazed way. Then 
he lay and looked, and a rich warm flush crept over 
his cheek, and stayed there. 

There was a great gap in his memory. 

The evening wore on. Once or twice the woman 
turned towards the room where the man lay, and lis- 
tened — she could not see his face from where she stood. 
At such times he lay still, though his heart beat quickly, 
like that of an expectant child. His lips opened to 
speak, but still they remained silent. As yet he was 
like a returned traveller who does not quickly recog- 
nise old familiar things, and who is struggling with 
vague suggestions and forgotten events. As time went 
on, the woman turned towards the doorway oftener, 
and shifted her position so that she faced it, and the 
sparks, flying up, lighted her face with a wonderful 
irregular brightness. 

“ Samantha,” he said at last, and his voice sounded 
so strange to him that the word quivered timidly 
towards her. 


THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 271 


She paused upon a stroke, and some new note in 
his voice sent so sudden a thrill to her heart that she 
caught her breath with a painful kind of joy. The 
hammer dropped upon the anvil, and, in a moment, 
she stood in the doorway of his room. 

“ Francis, Francis,” she said in a low whisper. 

He started up from his couch of skins. “ Samantha, 
my wife ! ” he cried in a strong proud voice. 

She dropped beside him and caught his head, like a 
mother, to her shoulder, and set her warm lips on his 
forehead and hair with a kind of hunger ; and then he 
drew her face down and kissed her on the lips. Tears 
hung at her eyes, and presently dropped on her cheeks, 
a sob shook her, and then she was still, her hands 
grasping his shoulders. 

“ Have I been ill ? ” he said. 

“ You have been very ill, Francis.” 

“ Has it been long? ” 

Her fingers passed tenderly through his grizzled 
hair. “ Too long, too long, my husband,” she replied. 

“ Is it summer now? ” 

“ Yes, Francis, it is summer.” 

“Was it in the spring, Samantha? — Yes, I think 
it was in the spring,” he added, musing. 

“ It was in a spring.” 

“ There was still snow on the mountain-top, the 
river was running high, and pelicans were gathered 
on the island in the lake — yes, I remember, I think.” 

“ And the men were working at the mine,” she 
whispered, her voice shaking a little, and her eyes 
eagerly questioning his face. 

“ Ah ! the mine^it was the mine, Samantha,” he 
said abruptly, his eyes flashing up, “ I was working 
at the forge to make a great bolt for the machinery. 


272 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

and someone forgot and set the engine in motion. I 
ran out, but it was too late . . . and then . . 

‘‘ And then you tried to save them, Francis, and you 
were hurt.” 

“ What month is this, my wife? ” 

“ It is December.” 

‘‘ And that was in October ? ” 

“ Yes, in October.” 

“ I have been ill since? What happened?” 

“ Many were killed, Francis, and you and I came 
away.” 

“ Where are we now ? I do not know the place.” 

“ This is Megalong Valley. You and I live alone 
here.” 

“ Why did you bring me here ? ” 

“ I did not bring you, Francis ; you wished me to 
come. One day you said to me, ^ There is a place in 
Megalong Valley where, long ago, an old man lived, 
who had become a stranger among men — a place where 
the bell-bird stays, and the warrigal troops and hides, 
and the guava grows as thick as blossoms on the 
wattle tree ; we will go there.’ And I came with 
you.” 

“ I do not remember, my wife. What of the mine? 
Was I a coward and left the mine? There was no one 
understood the ways of the wheel, and rod, and steam, 
but me.” 

“ The mine is closed, Francis,” she answered gently. 

You were no coward, but — but you had strange 
fancies.” 

“ When did the mine close? ” he said with a kind of 
sorrow ; ‘‘ I put hard work and good years into it.” 

At that moment, when her face drew close to his, the 
vision of her as she stood at the anvil came to him 


THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 


273 

with a new impression, and he said again in a half- 
frightened way, ‘‘ When did it close, Samantha ? 

“ The mine was closed — twelve years ago, my hus- 
band/’ 

He got to his feet and clasped her to his breast. A 
strength came to him which had eluded him twelve 
years, and she, womanlike, delighted in that strength, 
and, with a great gladness, changed eyes and hands 
with him ; keeping her soul still her own, brooding and 
lofty, as is the soul of every true woman, though, like 
this one, she labours at a forge, and in a far, un- 
tenanted country is faithful friend, ceaseless apothecary 
to a comrade with a disordered mind ; living on savage 
meats, clothing herself and the other in skins, and, 
with a divine persistence, keeping a cheerful heart, 
certain that the intelligence which was frightened from 
its home would come back one day. It should be 
hers to watch for the great moment, and give the wan- 
derer loving welcome, lest it should hurry madly away 
again into the desert, never to return. 

She had her reward, yet she wept. She had carried 
herself before him with the bright ways of an unvexed 
girl these twelve years past ; she had earned the salt of 
her tears. He was dazed still, but, the doublet of his 
mind no longer unbraced, he understood what she had 
been to him, and how she had tended him in absolute 
loneliness, her companions the wild things of the 
valley — these and God. 

He drew her into the work-shop, and put his hand 
upon the bellows and churned them, so that the fire 
roared joyously up, and the place was red with the 
light. In this light he turned her to him and looked 
at her. The look was as that of one who had come 
back from the dead — that naked, profound, uncon- 


274 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

ditional gaze which is as deep and honest as the prime- 
val sense. His eyes fell upon her rich, firm, stately 
body, it lingered for a moment on the brown fulness 
of her hair, then her look was gathered to his, and they 
fell into each other’s arms. 

For long they sat in the solemn silence of their joy, 
and so awed were they by the thing which had come to 
them that they felt no surprise when a wolf-dog crawled 
over the lizard on the threshold, and stole along the 
wall with shining, bloody eyes to an inner room, and 
stayed there munching meat to surfeit and drowsiness, 
and at last crept out and lay beside the forge in a thick 
sleep. These two had lived so much with the untamed 
things of nature, the bellows and the fire had been 
so long there, and the clang of the anvil was so familiar, 
that there was a kinship among them, man and beast, 
with the woman as ruler. 

“ Tell me, my wife,” he said at last, “ what has hap- 
pened during these twelve years, all from the first. 
Keep nothing back. I am strong now.” He looked 
around the work-shop, then, suddenly, at her, with a 
strange pain, and they both turned their heads away 
for an instant, for the same thought was on them. 
Then, presently, she spoke, and answered his shy, sor- 
rowful thought before all else. “ The child is gone,” 
she softly said. 

He sat still, but a sob was in his throat. He looked 
at her with a kind of fear. He wondered if his mad- 
ness had cost the life of the child. She understood. 

“ Did I ever see the child ? ” he said. 

“ Oh, yes, I sometimes thought that through the 
babe you would be yourself again. When you were 
near her you never ceased to look at her and fondle her, 
as I thought very timidly ; and you would start some- 


THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 275 

times and gaze at me with the old wise look hovering 
at your eyes. But the look did not stay. The child 
was fond of you, but she faded and pined, and one day 
as you nursed her you came to me and said, ‘ See, my 
wife, the little one will not wake. She pulled at my 
beard and said “ Daddy,’' and fell asleep.’ And I took 
her from your arms . . . There is a sandal tree 

near the door of our cottage at the mine. One night 
you and I buried her there ; but you do not remember 
her, do you ? ” 

My child ! My child ! ” he said, looking out into 
the night, and he lifted up his arms and looked at 
them. “ I held her here, and still I never held her ; 
I fondled her, and yet I never fondled her ; I buried her, 
yet — to me — she never was born.” 

“ You have been far away, Francis ; you have come 
back home. I waited, and prayed, and worked with 
you, and was patient . . . It is very strange,” she 

continued. “ In all these twelve years you cannot 
remember our past, though you remembered about 
this place — the one thing, as if God had made it so — 
and now you cannot remember these twelve years.” 

“ Tell me now of the twelve years,” he urged. 

“ It was the same from day to day. When we came 
from the mountain, we brought with us the implements 
of the forge upon a horse. Now and again as we trav- 
elled we cut our way through the heavy woods. You 
were changed for the better then; a dreadful trouble 
seemed to have gone from your face. There was a 
strong kind of peace in the valley, and there were so 
many birds and animals, and the smell of the trees was 
so fine, that we were not lonely, neither you nor I.” 

She paused, thinking, her eyes looking out to where 
the Southern Cross was sailing slowly out of the woody 


276 BORN WITH A GOLDEN SPOON 

horizon, his look on her. In the pause the wolf-dog' 
raised its big, sleepy eyes at them, then plunged its 
head into its paws, its wildness undisturbed by their 
presence. 

Presently the wife continued : “ At last we reached 

here, and here we have lived, where no human being, 
save one, has ever been. We put up the forge, and in 
a little hill not far away we found coal for it. The days 
went on. It was always summer, though there came 
at times a sharp frost, and covered the ground with 
a coverlet of white. But the birds were always with us, 
and the beasts were our friends. I learned to love 
even the shrill cry of the cockatoo, and the soft ding- 
dong of the bell-bird is the sweetest music to my ear 
after the song of the anvil. How often have you and I 
stood here at the anvil, the fire heating the iron, and 
our hammers falling constantly ! Oh, my husband, I 
knew that only here with God and His dumb creatures, 
and His wonderful healing world, all sun, and wind, 
and flowers, and blossoming trees, working as you 
used to work, as the first of men worked, would the 
sane wandering soul return to you. The thought was 
in you, too, for you led me here, and have been patient 
also in the awful exile of your mind.” 

“ I have been as a child, and not as a man,” he said 
gravely. “ Shall I ever again be a man, as I once was, 
Samantha ? ” 

“ You cannot see yourself,” she said. “ A week ago 
you fell ill, and since then you have been pale and 
worn ; but your body has been, and is, that of a great 
strong man. In the morning I will take you to a 
spring in the hills, and you shall see yourself, my hus- 
band.” 

“ He stood up, stretched himself, went to the door, 


THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY 


277 


and looked out into the valley flooded with moonlight. 
He drew in a great draught of air, and said, “ The 
world ! the great, wonderful world, where men live, and 
love work, and do strong things ! ” — he paused, and 
turned with a trouble in his face. “ My wife,” he said,. 
“ you have lived with a dead man twelve years, and 1 
have lost twelve years in the world. I had a great 
thought once — an invention — but now — ” he hung his 
head bitterly. 

She came to him, and her hands slid up along his 
breast to his shoulders, and rested there ; and she said, 
with a glad smile: “Francis, you have lost nothing. 
The thing — the invention — was all but finished when 
you fell ill a week ago. We have worked at it for 
these twelve years ; through it, I think, you have been 
brought back to me. Come, there is a little work yet 
to do upon it ; ” and she drew him to where a machine 
of iron lay in the corner. With a great cry he fell upon 
his knees beside it, and fondled it. 

Then presently, he rose, and caught his wife to his 
breast. 

Together, a moment after, they stood beside the 
anvil. The wolf-dog fled out into the night from the 
shower of sparks, as, in the red light, the two sang to 
the clanging of the hammers : 


“ When God was making the world 
(Swift is the wind and white is the fire) — ’ 


NOV 27 1899 



t 

1 

I 


« t 







I 



p • Iv 










. .nt' 

* »# « ** ' 9 9 

■nU if* ^i 


‘V 






n 



$ 



























0 





"^A V^ 




✓* 

. -, r# ^ ^ 

■ y. <I O^’ ^ ^ IV ^ -^O*^ * * 

„ _ N o ^ \ V. . » O , -A 

S' ”1 '^■ 

'P. o 

ry^ * 

'~^1 m ^ 0 <t \. ♦i'" „ V , ^ 

’ " ^ ^ o. .0‘ 

■' '^ ■ ^' ‘'’ • ‘llsi 

o o'* : ^ 

/''>Tvy 

\L^ C>^. . 

0 






V///^A\^ '*’ 't> 

^ <S^ 

* 'i^. ^ <^^'''Tr^'\\’' ,1, ''-i/. ' " • 

'■• .o-..” 1 ''*, % - 

J^dUA^ i‘ 



DEC 

iBBtWEB 


rntocriVAMUN it^N 
111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Twp„ PA 16066 
(412) 779-2111 


V , ■ ^ 

A ^ ' 0 . X ■* 

X*' <=0 (?' . 

- ■>. V ' 


xO°<. 


\ c<» 




> 


o 

" .•^ ° ' V > 

J 4* ' ^ O A V 

‘ <X V 8 ^ ^ 

N"** x'V,^% 

- ■'' 00 ^ 



■qS 

V 


^ 0 N 0 ^ 

. v" 

: ."' 

y ^ o V' 

^ 0 . ^ . 0 ^ 

. 0 ^ 



^ 0 . 


8 I A * ^ 

X* O' 

A •’ 



C% 

* ^' 

Q N C ^ * <t ^ 

'. K 
,* ),0 

v'^ O ^ ✓ 

■»' 'O (, 

^ 'Kc c^ ^ r. 

o o 

VVIP^* 

c^ * ^ C^'’^ 

li 1$ 

^ v> 0 ^ ® cC^ J. 

V ^ ^ ^UWo^ > \r ^ 

' '^°,'>l^->’' x'i-'^^ '■* 

.., .^ “~° v' »''“»^ 

^ ^ <3 c^ ^ 

vV’ ^ .rCvWA o ^ 


.< 


V S" ^ 1 

\. ^ ^ ^y/fH 

aV t/^ ^yAr^vCv *® 




c 


^ .-CV'.AV^w j- — 


> 


o ^ n ■>* xO"^ 

" * / , '> N 0 V ^ A * 0 ^ ^ S 

' '* > ^ T- «3 5 i * '' ^ 

'■^ ,1 _ . 



“ A ^ 

^C<' •> 

0 , X '*‘^ ^c>^ ^ ^ 

J *> -r^v ^ ^ V^ '^ dt^^/YT'P^ ^ ^ 

<y^ V 

00 ^ 




LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



